GIFT  OF 


ROBERT  J^BURDETTE 

His  MESSAGE 


EDITED  FROM  HIS  WRITINGS 
BY  HIS  WIFE 

CLARA  B.  BURDETTE 


THE  CLARA  VISTA  PRESS 

PASADENA,  CALIFORNIA 

THE  JOHN  C.  WINSTON  COMPANY 
CHICAGO  PHILADELPHIA  TORONTO 


COPYRIGHT,  1922,  BY 
CLARA  B.  BURDETTE 


PRINTED  IN  TJ.   ft.   A. 


?S|2fiS 

2s  45 

fnz 


FOREWORD 

This  biography  was  undertaken  at  the  request  of 
many  friends  of  Mr.  Burdette,  and  because  I  believe 
what  James  Whitcomb  Riley  wrote  to  me:  "Robert, 
your  husband  and  my  friend,  a  man  with  a  divine  gift, 
deserves  this  presentation  of  a  lasting  memorial,  which 
he  so  courageously  built  up  by  his  own  life." 

To  present  truly  a  character  dowered  with  a  genius 
so  out  of  the  ordinary  that  the  Creator  never  bestowed 
upon  another  an  identical  gift,  I  am  persuaded  that  the 
only  way  is  to  collate  the  expressions  he  himself  gave 
to  it.  Therefore,  I  have  endeavored  to  set  forth  the 
life  of  my  late  husband,  Robert  J.  Burdette,  by  these 
excerpts  from  his  writings. 

If  this  book  shall  recall  to  friends  beautiful  mem 
ories,  loving  counsel  and  joyous  hours  spent  with  a 
personality  so  winning,  I  shall  be  glad.  If  it  shall 
carry  to  others  a  message  of  inspiration,  of  courage, 
of  the  gospel  of  cheer,  of  love  and  human  understanding, 
his  chief  desire  will  have  been  fulfilled  and  my  labor 
repaid. 

CLARA  B.  BURDETTE. 


50  I  4- SO 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 11 

II.    ARMY  EXPERIENCE 35 

III.  FINDING  HIMSELF 74 

IV.  NEWSPAPER  CAREER 96 

V.    LECTURE  PLATFORM 121 

VI.    FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 163 

VII.    BREAKING  TIES 187 

VIII.    ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR  202 

IX.    CASUAL  INCIDENTS 222 

X.    CALIFORNIA    AND    PERMANENT    CHURCH 

WORK 241 

XI.    VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 295 

XII.    THE  CLOSING  YEARS 338 

XIII.  SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 402 

XIV.  A  LAST  TRIBUTE.  .                     452 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 11 

II.    ARMY  EXPERIENCE 35 

III.  FINDING  HIMSELF 74 

IV.  NEWSPAPER  CAREER 96 

V.    LECTURE  PLATFORM 121 

VI.  FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 163 

VII.  BREAKING  TIES 187 

VIII.  ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR  202 

IX.  CASUAL  INCIDENTS 222 

X.    CALIFORNIA    AND    PERMANENT    CHURCH 

WORK 241 

XI.  VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 295 

XII.  THE  CLOSING  YEARS 338 

XIII.  SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 402 

XIV.  A  LAST  TRIBUTE..  .452 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE Frontispiece 

PAGE 

THE  HOUSE  IN  WHICH  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  WAS  BORN  AT  GREENS 
BORO,  PA 10 

FREDERICK  EDWIN  BURDETTE,  FATHER  OF  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  ....     12 
MRS.  SOPHIA  EBERHART  BURDETTE,  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE'S  MOTHER    14 

DR.  HENRY  G.  WESTON,  WHOM  MR.  BURDETTE  TITLED  "  GENTLEST 
OF  ALL  PROPHETS" 33 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  AS  A  SOLDIER 36 

MR.  BURDETTE  IN  1877  AT  THE  BEGINNING  OF  HIS  LECTURE  CAREER.  124 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  OF  THE  "ROAMING  ROBERT"  LETTERS 144 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  IN  BRYN  MAWR  DAYS 202 

"ROBIN'S  NEST,"  BRYN  MAWR 214 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE,  AS  PREACHER  AND  PASTOR 244 

THE  BURDETTE  PARTY  IN  THE  HOLY  LAND 248 

THE  AUDITORIUM,  Los  ANGELES,  HOME  OF  TEMPLE  BAPTIST  CHURCH.  268 

"SUNNYCREST,"  THE  HOME  OF  DR.  AND  MRS.  BURDETTE  AT  PASADENA, 
CALIFORNIA 272 

MR.  BURDETTE  IN  HIS  DEN  AT  "SUNNYCREST",  PASADENA 338 

MR.  BURDETTE  IN  HIS  GARDEN  AT  "SUNNYCREST" 340 

MR.  BURDETTE  AND  A  GROUP  OF  THE  FRIENDS  HE  MADE  IN  HONOLULU, 
HAWAII 354 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  WITH  MR.  KENNEDY  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 
AND  MR.  K.  ITO,  PROPRIETOR  OF  THE  MANCHURIAN  DAILY  NEWS 
AT  DAIREN 356 

"PAPA"  BURDETTE  AND  CLARA 367 

MR.  BURDETTE  IN  HIS  "SUNNYCREST"  STUDY,  TAKEN  SHORTLY  BEFORE 
HIS  DEATH 399 

MRS.  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE — "VIOLET" 416 

THE  FINAL  WORD .  458 


THE  HOUSE  IN  WHICH  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  WAS  BORN 
AT  GREENSBORO,  PENNSYLVANIA 


CHAPTER  I 

ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

WHERE  the  Monongahela  runs  itself  out  of 
breath  to  catch  up  with  the  Ohio  River, 
in  the  little  County  of  Greene,  Pennsyl 
vania,  "a  county  just  large  enough  for  a 
man    to    get    born    in",    Robert    Jones  Burdette 
first  sighted  the   "new  shores"   on   July   30,    1844. 
Greensboro,  the  town  which  in  later  years  was   to 
be  dowered  by  the  fame  and  tender  memories  which 
clustered  around  this  world-loved  son,  shared  some  of 
the  history  which  Greene  County  at  large  furnished  for 
early  Pennsylvania,  and  the  history  makers  included 
the  ancestry  of  this  remarkable  man  who  was  to 
become  not  only  the  apostle  of  the  Merry  Heart,  but 
the  preacher  of  the  gospel  of  eternal  truth. 

His  ancestors  on  his  mother's  side  came  from  Wales, 
and  settled  in  1770  at  Newark,  Delaware,  near  the  old 
Welsh  Tract  Church  on  the  railroad  between  Washing 
ton  and  Philadelphia.  His  grandfather,  Robert  Jones, 
was  born  in  1795,  and  Anna  Eberhart,  his  grand 
mother,  in  1800.  They  were  married  at  Greensboro  on 
August  27,  1818.  Of  this  union  there  were  born 
twelve  children,  third  among  them  being  Sophia  Eber 
hart  Jones,  born  June  21,  1823,  who  was  herself  to 
become  the  mother  of  ten  children,  the  second  one  being 
Robert  Jones  Burdette. 

This  grandfather,  Robert  Jones,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  last  century,  was  most  interested  in  the  glass  works 
in  Greene  County,  which  also  held  the  investments  of 
several  distinguished  Americans,  among  them  Albert 

11 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD 

Greensboro  Baptist  Church  today,  the  church  where 
the  grandfather  was  Deacon  Jones,  is  a  cathedral  glass 
window,  placed  there  in  1907  by  Robert  J.  Burdette 
in  memory  of  his  mother. 

Once  when  he  returned  to  Greensboro  in  the  early 
80's  to  fill  a  lecture  engagement  he  was  introduced  to 
the  audience  by  a  verbose  man,  who  assured  the  people 
that  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the  lecturer  when  he 
was  a  boy,  and  told  with  glee  and  enthusiasm  of  his 
boyish  pranks.  Mr.  Burdette  was  obliged  to  remark, 

"That  man  has  a  remarkable  imagination,  for  I 
left  this  town  when  I  was  only  two  years  old/' 

Referring  again  to  this  period,  he  wrote: 

I  never,  positively  never,  did  anything  I  was  ashamed  of 
while  I  remained  in  my  native  State.  I  never  swore;  I  never 
lied;  I  never  stole  anything;  I  never  went  to  a  circus;  I  never 
ran  away  from  Sunday  School;  I  didn't  go  out  at  night;  I 
didn't  play  billiards  nor  go  to  horse  races.  Good  boy  that  I 
was,  I  stayed  at  home  and  entertained  the  family.  No  man, 
I  ween,  ever  lived  a  purer  life  than  I  did  while  I  lived  in 
Pennsylvania. 

While  he  had  no  early  recollections  of  his  own,  he 
always  possessed  an  affectionate  loyalty  for  this  town 
of  his  birth  because  of  the  natural  setting  as  related 
by  the  older  members  of  the  family.  And  when  in 
after  years,  January  7,  1882,  Greensboro's  "favorite 
son"  could  "reckon  his  latitude  and  longitude"  and 
in  the  course  of  a  lecture  pilgrimage  found  himself 
again  in  Greene  County,  "where  it  poured  down  every 
furlong  of  the  twenty-one  miles  from  Waynesburg  to 
my  birth-place,  and  where  every  run  was  a  torrent, 
every  creek  was  a  river,  and  old  Ten  Mile  was  as  broad 
as  the  Monongahela  and  twice  as  quick",  he  wrote: 

A  man  does  love  to  go  back  and  view  the  scenes  among 
which  he  made  his  start,  even  though  he  may  not  remember 

13 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

Monongahela  singing  at  my  feet,  and  in  the  stars  I  see  the  soft 
light  of  my  mother's  eyes,  and  listening  to  the  song  of  the  river, 
I  know  where  her  dear  voice  caught  the  low,  mellow  music 
that  in  the  long  ago  lulled  with  the  old-time  cradle  songs,  her 
little  ones  to  sleep. 

From  his  mother,  the  son  Robert  inherited  many  of 
the  Welsh  characteristics  which  so  markedly  enriched 
his  life.  Possibly  it  was  from  this  ancestry  that  he 
gained  the  almost  singing  eloquence  in  which  his  words 
were  uttered,  as  though  in  obedience  to  the  rhythm  of  a 
song,  and  so  rapidly  sometimes  that  the  closest  atten 
tion  was  necessary  in  order  to  follow  him. 

From  father,  as  well  as  mother,  came  the  gift  of  a 
brilliant  mind  and  marvelous  memory,  which,  in  the 
long  years  of  literary  output,  was  to  prove  a  store 
house  of  unfailing  mental  equipment.  The  Southern 
gift  of  oratory  was  also  his  as  a  legacy,  for  his  father 
could,  with  argument  and  witty  repartee,  instruct  and 
entertain  by  the  hour  on  any  religious  or  political 
subject.  His  parents  were  thoughtful  people  who 
looked  with  earnestness  upon  life,  and  were  intelligently 
alive  to  the  public  affairs  of  the  times.  After  sight  and 
hearing  were  almost  gone,  his  father  was  keenly  alive  to 
the  current  events  of  the  day,  and  his  letters — which 
were  written  regularly  up  to  the  time  he  became  bed 
ridden  and  it  was  impossible  for  him  longer  to  write — 
in  almost  every  instance  abounded  in  political  opinions 
and  references.  He  was  an  uncompromising  Republi 
can;  and  the  Democrats,  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters, 
"are  toiling  in  their  State  Convention  today  to  unite  as 
many  factions  of  thieves  as  they  can  in  order  to  carry 
the  next  State  election." 

In  religion  he  was  a  Baptist,  equally  as  earnest  in 
his  denominational  belief  as  in  his  politics.  He  was 

15 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

a  bookkeeper  by  profession,  though  engaged  in  limited 
commercial  enterprises  from  time  to  time.  He  managed 
to  maintain  his  family  of  ten,  two  of  the  children  hav 
ing  died  in  early  life,  with  the  thrifty  help  of  wife  and 
children,  for  the  family  income  was  limited,  and 
"it  became  necessary,"  as  the  son  Robert  said  after 
wards,  "for  me,  as  the  oldest  boy,  to  contribute  some 
thing  at  the  earliest  possible  date  to  the  assistance  of 
my  father  and  mother." 

The  father  had  somewhat  the  easy-going  way  of  his 
Virginia  forebears,  and  when  he  arrived  at  middle 
life,  his  health  being  somewhat  broken,  he  resigned  the 
responsibility  of  income  producing,  saying  he  had 
brought  up  his  family,  and  now  it  was  their  turn,  and 
they  lovingly  cared  for  him  until  he  passed  away  in 
1910. 

From  both  sides  of  his  ancestry  Robert  inherited  a 
deep  and  abiding  religious  faith.  It  was  that  religion, 
which,  untrammeled  and  unalloyed  by  doubt  or  fear, 
gave  him  his  supreme  confidence  in  God  and  His 
guardianship. 

To  the  Pennsylvania  Society  of  Southern  California, 
at  one  of  its  annual  meetings,  referring  to  his  successive 
pilgrimages  in  the  development  of  his  life  and  work,  he 
said: 

I  was  born  in  Pennsylvania,  weaned  in  Ohio,  kidnapped  by 
Illinois,  adopted  by  Iowa  and  married  to  California. 

And  so  it  was  that  his  parents  removed  from  Greens 
boro  to  Ohio  in  1846,  where  his  father  established  a 
small  business  in  Cummingsville,  near  Cincinnati,  but 
an  Ohio  flood  made  it  impossible  for  his  customers  to 
meet  their  bills  and  he  in  turn  was  obliged  to  suspend 
business. 
16 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

Mr.  Burdette  revisited  this  spot  in  after  years  and 
exclaimed: 

Here  is  Cummingsville.  I  wonder  where  is  Knowlton's 
Grocery — it  was  Knowlton's,  wasn't  it?  Twenty-five  years 
ago  I  went  to  school  in  the  upper  story  of  the  old  stone  grocery, 
and  played  in  the  horse  trough,  and  fell  in  sundry  times,  to 
the  infinite  amusement  of  an  enthusiastic  audience  and  the 
demoralization  of  my  clothes.  The  long,  dark,  covered 
bridge  over  Mill  Creek  that  I  used  to  people  with  unheard-of 
terrors  when  I  went  streaking  through  it  when  the  deepening 
twilight  filled  it  with  grotesque  shadows  and  gloomy  shapes 
that  lurked  among  the  heavy  timbers  and  ponderous  arches. 

The  canal  packets  that  used  to  carry  us  to  Cincinnati;  ah! 
you  talk  about  floating  palaces  on  the  Mississippi!  you  rave 
about  the  Sound  steamers  or  the  boats  of  the  "People's  Line!" 
Did  you  ever  ride  on  a  passenger  boat  on  the  Miami  Canal? 
There  was  grandeur  for  you.  If  I  could  only  have  changed 
places  in  those  days  with  the  boy  who  rode  the  hind  mule,  my 
restless  ambition  would  have  been  satisfied! 

You  never  rode  on  a  canal  boat  in  the  spring,  the  first  one 
that  went  through,  to  break  the  ice,  did  you?  Then  you  have 
never  been  anywhere  and  never  done  anything.  But  this 
Cummingsville,  as  I  look  at  it — pshaw,  somebody  has  spoiled 
it.  They  have  built  houses  all  over  it  and  a  new  railroad  into 
it.  The  canal  isn't  half  as  wide  as  it  used  to  be,  Mill  Creek 
seems  to  have  been  drained  off  somewhere;  I  would  not  live 
in  Cummingsville  now  for  a  salary.  They've  spoiled  it,  every 
thing  is  smaller  except  the  houses.  Look  for  the  "house  of 
refuge"  which  was  my  boyish  terror,  and  I  wonder  where  is 
Shaddinger's  distillery  that  used  to  be  the  landmark  on  the 
other  side  of  the  creek,  and  I  look  at  the  great  bearded  fellows 
in  the  streets  and  about  the  depot  and  wonder  if  they  are  the 
boys  I  used  to  go  to  school  with?  If  they  are,  it  seems  to  me 
they  have  also  changed  somewhat. 

It  was  in  Cincinnati  that  Robert  first  experienced 
the  school  days,  the  memories  of  which  he  referred  to  in 
after  years,  when  returning  there  to  lecture,  and  wrote: 

17 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

After  the  lecture  I  shook  hands  with  Father  Dinkelman. 
Ah  me,  and  he  had  been  wondering  all  week  if  maybe  I  might 
not  be  his  Robert  after  all,  the  urchin  of  five  or  seven  summers 
who  tried  the  patience  and  good  nature  of  his  heart  years  and 
years  ago,  when  I  wore  bare  feet  because  they  fit  me  so  com 
fortably.  Father  Dinkelman  taught  school  in  Fulton.  The 
school  house  stood  up  like  a  great  educational  elephant  on  long 
legs  of  brick  columns,  and  we  climbed  up  to  the  school  room  by 
an  outside  stairway.  I  can  remember  exactly  how  it  looked. 
You  would  think  it  could  walk  away  on  those  long  legs  if  it 
tried.  Well,  that  was  the  first  school  I  ever  went  to.  There  I 
got  the  first  flogging  I  ever  enjoyed,  and  I  remember  well  what 
it  was  for.  Winter  ruled  the  inverted  year,  bare  feet  had  gone 
out  of  fashion,  and  a  red-hot  stove  glowed  in  the  center  room. 
I  was  the  happy  owner  of  a  goose  quill,  quite  new  and  about  a 
foot  long.  I  rubbed  this  feather  slowly  up  and  down  the  scarlet 
stove  to  see  it  curl  up.  It  curled  up  beautifully.  But  it  couldn't 
curl  up  quietly,  without  making  a  fuss  about  it,  and  if  the  top 
of  the  stove  had  blown  off  it  couldn't  have  created  the  indigna 
tion  and  excitement  in  the  school  room  that  my  little  experi 
ment  with  the  feather  did.  So  I  was  whipped.  It  wasn't  much 
of  a  whipping,  I  remember,  because  it  was  a  very  kind  hand 
that  laid  it  on.  But  it  scared  me. 

Other  teachers,  in  old  Fulton,  Cummingsville  and  Peoria 
have  since  then  wrestled  with  my  native  ignorance  and  aversion 
to  text  books,  with  sticks  and  patience  and  slate  frames  and 
skate  straps  and  willow  switches  and  one  thing  and  another, 
but  I  have  never  forgotten  the  old  market  place  school  in 
Fulton  and  Mr.  Dinkelman. 

The  family  was  lured  from  Cummingsville  to  Peoria 
in  October,  1852,  where  the  father  was  offered  a  position 
as  bookkeeper  in  the  large  dry-goods  store  of  a  brother- 
in-law  and  here  they  remained  until  the  family  was 
educated  and  scattered,  as  the  years  bring  about  the 
natural  separation  of  any  large  and  active  family. 

But  the  family  ties  always  remained  strong  and 
tender  as  between  children  and  parents,  and  among  the 
children  themselves.  This  was  evidenced  during  the 
18 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

periods  of  absence  from  home  in  early  and  later  life, 
which  were  marked  by  long  letters,  descriptive,  ex 
planatory,  telling  in  simple  terms  of  family  movements 
and  interests,  and  setting  forth  hopes,  prospects  and 
aspirations.  Here  in  Peoria  were  spent  most  of  the 
formative  years  of  his  young  manhood.  Many  are  the 
pictures  he  himself  has  given  in  later  years  of  his  boy 
hood  experiences: 

The  first  winter  we  lived  in  Illinois  [he  said],  we  had  a 
Christmas  according  to  the  books.  My  brother  and  I  had  new 
sleds.  Not  store  sleds,  gaudily  decorated  with  stenciled  trot 
ting  horses  and  a  name  that  no  self-respecting  boy  would  give 
to  a  stone-drag,  let  alone  a  sled,  but  real  hand  sleds,  made  by 
a  regularly  ordained  carpenter.  They  were  not  so  good  as 
they  would  have  been  had  we  made  them  ourselves,  of  course, 
but  they  were  far  and  away  better  than  store  sleds.  They 
were  ready  for  the  snow  about  the  last  week  in  November. 

Early  in  December  the  snow  came  down.  And  stayed 
down.  And  kept  on  coming  down.  It  drifted  up  to  the  win 
dows  and  over  the  fences.  The  country  roads  were  turned  into 
embankments.  When  the  first  flakes  came  fluttering  down, 
a  double  case  of  whooping-cough  trundled  itself  into  our  house 
and  took  two  boys  by  their  respective  necks  and  kept  them  on 
the  warpath  until  the  springtime  brought  its  healing  sunshine 
and  malarial  mud.  Then  it  resigned  and  gave  place  to  "fever 
'n'  ager."  But  all  that  winter  was  made  of  gala  days  to  boys 
who  could  get  out.  Every  hill  was  a  toboggan  chute,  and 
every  bob-sled  or  sleigh  that  drove  past  our  windows  dragged 
after  it  a  long  trail  of  juvenile  humanity  that  had  "hooked  on." 

Think  of  two  boys  entertaining  the  whooping-cough  and 
gazing  through  the  windows  at  that  panorama  of  boyish  joy 
week  after  week,  and  then  talk  about  the  martyrs!  And  the 
worst  of  it  was,  there  was  no  need  of  our  remaining  in  quaran 
tine.  But  we  hadn't  lived  out  West  long  enough  to  know  that. 
The  next  winter  my  youngest  brother  had  it.  He  went  to 
school  with  it,  coasted  with  it,  and  one  night,  while  skating, 
broke  through  the  ice  with  it.  It  did  him  good.  He  was  all 
through  with  it  by  the  end  of  January.  We  were  a  tough 

19 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

people  out  West  in  those  days,  and  a  boy  who  couldn't  help 
build  a  snow  fort  or  go  a-skating  when  he  had  the  croup,  was 
considered  effeminate. 

Hanging  up  our  stockings  when  I  was  a  boy  was  not  the 
hollow  farce  which  it  now  is.  There  were  fireplaces  by  which 
stockings  could  be  hung  up.  To  hang  a  collection  of  stockings 
of  assorted  sizes  around  a  black  and  cheerless  register,  smelling 
of  sulphur  from  a  defective  heater,  is  a  profanation.  And 
hanging  them  in  front  of  a  cold  and  clammy  steam  radiator 
should  be  prohibited  by  law.  It  tends  to  make  children  skep 
tical  and  atheistic. 

In  the  older  days  Kris  Kringle  had  a  broad  chimney  to 
come  down,  and  a  fireplace  as  big  as  a  store  box  to  jump  out  of. 
There  was  a  mantelpiece  like  unto  a  sideboard,  from  which  the 
stockings  depended.  Sometimes,  if  a  long  stocking  were 
hung  in  the  middle,  insecurely  held  by  a  pin,  the  draft  would 
draw  it  partly  into  the  fireplace  during  the  night.  Then  the 
whole  family  would  be  aroused,  and  we  would  go  shuffling  about 
the  house,  like  so  many  shivering  phantoms,  hunting  for  the  fire. 

The  old-fashioned  fireplace  had  more  drawbacks  than  the 
backlog.  As  a  rule,  the  bigger  the  fireplace  the  colder  the  room. 
All  the  heat  that  could  be  drawn  from  every  room  in  the  house 
went  up  the  big  sitting  room  chimney.  Eternal  summer  must 
have  lingered  somewhere  up  in  that  great  stack. 

Referring  to  his  experience  on  trying  to  cross  the 
Hinman  pond  on  stilts: 

Slowly  I  swayed  from  side  to  side,  as  I  tried  first  one  foot 
and  then  the  other.  A  silence,  deep  as  the  grave,  awful,  impres 
sive,  succeeded  the  clamorous  shouting.  The  starboard  stilt, 
with  one  long  sickening  swing,  eased  slowly  away  from  its 
fellow.  I  heard  a  girl  scream — long  and  loud  and  shrill.  The 
wind  hissed  in  my  face;  an  inhuman  yell  of  high-keyed  boyish 
voices  surged  up  the  very  firmament;  a  mighty  splash;  the 
roar  of  many  waters  in  my  ears,  a  blinding  flash,  then — dark 
ness.  The  next  instant  I  lifted  my  head,  shook  the  spray  in  a 
cloud  from  my  dripping  locks,  blew  a  pailful  of  water  out  of 
my  mouth,  and  struck  out  for  land.  Dripping  like  Horatius 
after  his  justly  celebrated  passage  of  the  Tiber,  wetter  than 

20 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

Leander  crawling  out  of  the  Hellespont,  I  waded  ashore.    And 
round  me  pressed  the  fellows,  yelling,  shrieking,  dancing — 

—They  threw  their  caps 

As  they  would  hang  them  on  the  horns  o'  the  moon, 

Shouting  their  emulation. 

They  fell  down  and  rolled  in  uncontrollable  delight.  I  laid 
violent  hands  on  the  nearest  one,  smote  him  twice  and  thrice, 
dragged  him,  still  shrieking,  into  the  pond  and  ducked  him. 
He  did  not  mind  it.  He  laughed  an  unearthly,  strangled  laugh, 
with  his  head  under  water.  The  rest  of  them  fled  from  me 
when  I  threatened  them,  for  my  "mad"  was  up  to  120  degrees 
in  the  shade,  but  this  only  lent  increase  to  their  frantic  ebulli 
tions  of  joy.  My  furious  temper  robbed  the  whole  thing  of 
what  little  touch  of  the  semi-tragic  or  pathetic  it  might  have 
possessed,  and  made  the  whole  catastrophe  all  the  funnier. 

One  little  girl,  tears  in  her  sweet  blue  eyes,  and  her  soft 
voice  all  a  tremble,  came  close  to  me  and  pitied  me,  and  said 
she  was  "so  sorry."  Two  of  her  girls  are  married,  and  her 
youngest  boy  is  in  college.  They  will  never  know  how  near 
their  mother  came  to  being  thrown  half  way  across  "  Hinman's 
pond"  in  June,  1857. 

I  was  escorted  home  by  a  volunteer  bodyguard  of  boys  of 
assorted  sizes  and  all  ages,  who  were  hoarse  as  croup  for  tw 
weeks  after. 

My  mother  rushed  out  of  the  house  to  meet  us. 

"My  son!"  she  cried,  "you  have  been  in  the  pond!" 

I  did  not  know  how  she  surmised  it.  Certainly  nobody 
had  told  her.  I  now  attribute  it  to  the  unerring  intuition  of 
maternal  instinct. 

"Mother,"  I  said  bitterly,  "I  cannot  tell  a  lie  about  a 
little  thing  like  that.  But,"  I  added,  "I  saved  a  boy's  life." 

"My  noble  boy!"  she  exclaimed,  "how  did  you  do  that?" 

"Because,"  I  said,  in  a  cold,  hard  voice,  "he  got  away 
from  me;  that's  how!" 

And  another  incident  held  in  memory  by  a  girl 
playmate  who  may  have  cried  when  it  happened,  but 
laughs  now  over  the  boyish  characteristic,  she  relates 
concerning  her  grandfather's  farm,  which  adjoined  his 

21 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

grandfather  Jones'  farm,  which  was  at  that  time  about 
a  mile  and  a  half  out  of  Peoria,  and  later  became  the 
bluff  along  the  main  street  of  the  town: 

Here  Bob  always  spent  Saturdays.  On  the  hillside  between 
the  two  farms  was  a  patch  of  very  fine  blackberries.  I  would 
sometimes  go  on  Friday  to  gather  them,  but  finding  them  not 
fully  ripe,  would  decide  to  leave  them  for  another  day.  At 
about  half-past  four  on  Friday  afternoon  I  would  see  a  barefoot 
boy  with  up-turned  pantaloons  and  his  merry  whistled  tune 
trudging  by,  and  would  say,  "There  goes  Bob  Burdette,  and 
he  will  not  leave  a  blackberry  for  me."  And  sure  enough,  on 
Saturday  afternoon  there  was  not  one  to  be  found.  We  knew 
too,  that  he  frequented  our  melon  patch,  as  he  admitted  many 
years  after,  in  a  written  article  for  one  of  the  Peoria  papers, 
in  which  he  said,  "There  never  were  any  finer  melons  grown 
than  those  in  father  Snebly's  truck  patch." 

Years  afterward  he  wrote  from  this  same  farm  at 
Mt.  Pleasant  of  his  grandfather: 

Softly  blow  the  winds  that  whisper  through  the  grasses 
bending  over  the  dear  old  heart,  scarcely  more  gentle  in  sleep 
than  in  life. 

His  sister  Anna  releases  from  her  memory  this 
picture  of  his  boyhood: 

To  me  he  was  a  big  teasing  boy,  always  merry,  playing 
practical  jokes,  telling  wonderful  tales  which  enchanted  us  all, 
of  which  he  seemed  to  have  an  inexhaustible  supply.  He 
learned  with  remarkable  facility,  and  retained  what  he  learned 
fully  as  remarkably,  but  perhaps  for  that  very  reason  too  close 
application  was  irksome.  He  was  skillful  with  tools,  for  in 
those  days  boys  and  girls  made  their  own  games  and  toys. 
We  made  our  own  checker  and  chess  boards  and  men,  fashioned 
sleds  and  small  wagons,  in  short,  everything  we  used  for  amuse 
ment  we  must  provide,  and  in  these  things  he  was  first  and  fore 
most.  He  had  always  a  cool  and  retentive  mind,  a  nimble 
tongue  and  ready  wit,  a  cheery  whistle  and  capable  hands,  was 
beloved  at  home  and  abroad  and  was  always  what  you  might 
22 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

call  a  popular  boy.     But  the  most  vivid  of  my  memories  was 
the  whistle — he  and  the  whistle  were  inseparable. 

Of  his  fondness  for  the  outdoors,  Mr.  Burdette  says: 

From  my  earliest  recollection  of  myself,  I  was  a  "woodsy" 
boy.  I  worshipped  the  woods  before  I  knew  what  tree  worship 
was.  The  wind  calling  in  the  tree  tops  would  lure  me  away 
from  that  arch-enchanter  of  boyhood,  the  circus.  I  grew  up 
with  this  love  for  the  woods.  I  am  said  to  be  the  most  helpless 
man  in  a  city  that  ever  lost  himself  in  a  maze  of  familiar  streets. 
But  I  can  lose  you  all  in  the  woods.  My  idly-busy  "flutter 
wheels"  pattered  on  every  brook  in  my  township,  and  I  could 
find  my  rabbit  traps  at  night.  .  .  . 

I  recall  a  great  swamp  maple  that  every  year  was  the  first 
herald  to  announce  the  silent  on-coming  of  the  radiant  hosts 
of  autumn.  First  of  all  the  tree  used  to  fling  out  its  banners 
of  green  and  gold  and  glorious  crimson,  a  flaming  signal  for  all 
the  woods  to  burst  into  the  flaming  splendors  of  autumn,  veiled 
by  the  misty  tenderness  of  the  Indian  summer.  And  all  the 
year,  in  the  protecting  shadow  of  the  trees,  such  a  wealth  of 
woodland  bloom  down  in  the  quiet  hiding  places  of  the  woods 
where  only  God  and  the  squirrels  and  children  ever  find  them 
and  see  them  and  love  them  in  their  native  haunts. 

A  procession  of  flowers  from  the  time  the  first  anemones  lift 
their  pearly  heads,  leading  the  pageant  of  white  blood  root  and 
purple  violets  and  all  the  summer  glowed  through  the  beauties 
of  the  changing  year  of  bud  and  blossom,  until  the  St.  John's 
wort  embroidered  all  the  country  roads;  the  purple  aster  and 
goldenrod  rung  down  the  "slow  curtain"  while  maple  and 
woodbine  burned  red  fire  for  the  closing  transformation  scene 
of  the  year. 

Also  his  brother  Charlie's  reminiscences  of  the  very 
early  days  are  told  when  he  writes: 

My  attitude  toward  Rob  as  a  child  was  always  one  of 
admiration  rather  than  amusement.  He  was  to  me  a  great 
man  rather  than  a  funny  fellow.  It  seemed  to  me  he  knew 
everything  and  could  do  everything.  He  made  a  set  of  chess 
men  when  I  was  six  or  seven  years  old,  and  I  remember  my 

23 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

wonder  that  he  knew  just  what  wood  to  get,  and  could  cut 
them  into  the  exact  shape  of  those  in  the  stores.  Also  I  mar 
veled  at  his  ability  to  make  an  elaborate  old-fashioned  aspara 
gus  bed.  I  wondered  at  his  story-telling  ability.  I  never 
remembered  the  stories  themselves  especially,  but  I  would  help 
John  gather  old  nails  and  scraps  of  metal  to  buy  his  stories, 
and  would  gladly  pay  double  for  one  that  he  just  made  up  as 
he  went  along,  but  the  stories  themselves  were  lost  in  the 
story  teller. 

Glimpses  of  his  boyhood  life  are  also  given  in  a 
letter  written  in  the  later  years  by  his  brother,  John  W. 
Burdette,  with  whom  he  was  associated  on  the  Burling 
ton  Hawk-Eye,  and  who  was  until  his  death  a  lawyer 
in  Chicago: 

Yesterday  two  bare-footed  boys  snared  gophers  in  Voris' 
field,  and  trudged  joyfully  through  the  woods  to  Kickapoo 
Creek,  gathering  violets  and  bluebells  and  columbines  along 
Dry  Run,  and  the  day  before  in  a  leaky  boat  they  explored 
the  Eastern  shore  of  Peoria  Lake  and  the  sinuosities  of  Farm 
Creek,  unconscious  that  an  anxious  parent  the  while  scanned 
their  manoeuvres  with  a  field  glass.  Again  they  over-ran 
grandfather's  farm  and  burned  stumps,  dropped  com,  turned 
the  grindstone,  hunted  eggs,  swung  on  the  grapevine,  and  helped 
pull  old  Phoebe  out  of  the  clay  hole.  Sunday  morning  they 
rode  into  town  on  the  farm  wagon  in  time  to  be  marshalled, 
not  without  protest,  into  a  pew,  and  to  fidget  while  Dr.  Weston 
preached.  They  knew  every  walnut,  persimmon  and  pecan 
tree  in  two  counties,  and  never  missed  a  poison  ivy  in  either. 

These  same  boyhood  days,  with  their  plays  and 
diversions,  furnished  him  a  vivid  memory  from  which 
he  gained  many  an  inspiration  and  illustration  for  the 
humor  of  his  Hawk-Eye  days  and  the  more  serious 
messages  of  his  later  life. 

So  long  as  I  can  remember  I  was  a  happy  child,  and 
people  who  remember  a  great  deal  more  about  me  than  I  can 
recall,  say  I  was  a  remarkably  happy,  good-natured  baby.  I 

24 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD 

have  heard  my  own  dear  mother  testify  to  this  effect.  I  always 
liked  the  world  and  it  has  always  been  good  to  me.  From  boy 
hood  I  have  been  a  pet  of  Providence.  All  my  life  I  have  had 
everything  I  wanted.  When  I  could  not  get  a  desired  object, 
I  said  I  did  not  want  it. 

And  this  philosophy  stood  him  in  good  stead  through 
many  an  hour  of  exacting  labor,  trying  circumstance,  and 
disappointments  that  would  have  overshadowed  a  less 
optimistic  nature. 

Mr.  Burdette's  boyhood  days  were  not  all  spent  in 
roaming  the  fields  and  "riding  the  water  ways"  in  and 
around  Peoria,  and  making  friends  with  every  tree,  and 
bird,  and  breeze,  and  star,  and  moonbeam  which 
glorified  nature  in  the  home  land,  but  school  and  some 
work  laid  their  restraining  hand  on  the  buoyant  young 
nature  with  an  over-quick  temper  and  a  surplus  of 
impatience,  which  life's  discipline  finally  molded  into 
the  gentlest  and  most  patient  of  spirits. 

The  close  companionship  with  natural  beauty  at  a 
time  when  the  mind  was  open  and  free  for  impressions, 
was  to  furnish  a  storehouse  of  memories  from  which  the 
later  imagination  was  to  draw  for  color  and  illustration 
of  that  infinite  variety  of  word  pictures  which  were  the 
joy  and  marvel  of  his  audiences,  and  the  school  lessons 
absorbed  by  snatches  were  to  be  the  basis  of  a  knowl 
edge  augmented  by  constant  reading  of  history  and 
literature,  especially  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare,  which 
was  to  furnish  a  use  of  English  that  never  seemed  to 
want  for  a  word  more. 

The  fact  that  he  learned  too  quickly,  and  played 
truant  weeks  at  a  time,  though  the  family  did  not  know 
it  until  Mary  had  to  spend  the  summer  coaching  him 
for  the  fall  term,  may  have  seemed  most  reprehensible 
at  the  time;  but  the  many  excursions  taken  at  such 

25 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

times  into  field  and  woods  were  like  the  dropping  of  seed 
into  the  fertile  soil  of  his  young  mind,  to  blossom  in 
color  and  beauty  when  in  later  years  he  wrote  of  the 
country  about  Peoria  as  a 

beautiful,  rumpled,  rolling  carpet  of  grass-green  velvet,  riddled 
with  gopher  holes,  and  flecked  with  grazing  cattle  and  white 
clover,  musical  with  plover,  meadow  larks  and  wild  bees. 

And  again: 

of  the  dust  of  the  long  cool  road  that  went  lingering  in  the  shade 
of  the  rocks  and  trees  on  its  way  down  to  the  "crick."  On 
either  side  the  great  walls  of  Kickapoo  sandstone  rose  high 
above  the  road.  Famous  stone  for  building  purposes  was  this 
in  the  olden  times.  It  had  only  one  fault.  It  would  crack, 
peel  off  and  crumble  when  it  got  wet,  but  if  you  kept  it  dry,  it 
would  only  crumble,  peel  off  and  crack.  Plumy  ferns  waved 
in  the  rocks,  and  the  bells  of  the  columbine  swinging  in  the 
wind  fairly  tinkled  as  we  passed.  Branching  oaks  shook  hands 
across  the  road.  Broad-leafed  hickories  rustled  back  our 
shouts,  and  down  in  the  valley  ghostly  cottonwoods  and  slender- 
fingered  willows  waved  a  welcome  to  us. 

After  these  varied  "in  and  out"  school  days  he 
entered  the  Hinman  school,  and  though  he  afterward 
gave  many  a  mirthful  picture  of  Peoria  school  days, 
one  was  eventually  to  make  Hinman  School  remem 
bered  by  many  who  were  never  its  pupils.  The  "strike 
at  Hinman's,"  partially  fanciful,  partially,  perhaps, 
based  upon  fact,  has  been  read  and  re-read  by  thou 
sands  of  Illinoisians,  as  well  as  others: 

Away  back  in  the  fifties,  "Hinman's"  was  not  only  the 
best  school  in  Peoria,  but  it  was  the  greatest  school  in  the  world. 
I  sincerely  thought  so  then,  and  as  I  was  a  very  lively  part  of  it, 
I  should  know.  Mr.  Hinman  was  the  faculty,  and  he  was 
sufficiently  numerous  to  demonstrate  the  cube  root  with  one 
hand  and  maintain  discipline  with  the  other.  Dear  old  man! 
Boys  and  girls  with  grandchildren  love  him  today,  and  think 

26 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

of  him  among  their  blessings.  He  was  superintendent  of  public 
instruction,  board  of  education,  school  trustee,  county  super 
intendent,  principal  of  the  high  school  and  janitor.  He  had  a 
pleasant  smile,  a  genius  for  mathematics  and  a  West  Point 
idea  of  forbearance  and  discipline.  He  carried  upon  his  per 
son  a  grip  that  would  make  the  imported  malady  which  mocks 
that  name  in  these  degenerate  days,  call  itself  slack,  in  very 
terror  at  having  assumed  the  wrong  title. 

We  used  to  have  general  exercises  on  Friday  afternoons. 
The  most  exciting  feature  of  this  weekly  frivolity  consisted  of 
a  free-for-all  exercise  in  mental  arithmetic.  Mr.  Hinman  gave 
out  lists  of  numbers,  beginning  with  the  easy  ones  and  speaking 
slowly.  Each  succeeding  list  he  dictated  more  rapidly  and  with 
ever-increasing  complications  of  addition,  subtraction,  multi 
plication  and  division,  until  at  last  he  was  giving  them  out 
faster  than  he  could  talk.  One  by  one  the  pupils  dropped  out 
of  the  race  with  despairing  faces  but  always  at  the  closing 
peremptory:  "Answer?"  at  least  a  dozen  hands  shot  into  the 
air  and  as  many  voices  shouted  the  correct  answer.  We  didn't 
have  many  books  and  the  curriculum  of  an  Illinois  school  in 
those  days  was  not  academic ;  but  two  things  the  children  could 
do,  they  could  spell  as  well  as  the  dictionary  and  they  could 
handle  figures.  Some  of  the  fellows  fairly  wallowed  in  them. 
I  didn't.  I  simply  drowned.  I  drowned  in  the  shallowest 
pond  of  the  numbers  that  ever  spread  itself  on  the  page.  And 
even  unto  this  day  I  do  the  same. 

Well,  one  year  the  teacher  introduced  an  innovation — 
"compositions"  by  the  girls  and  "speaking"  pieces  by  the 
boys.  It  was  easy  enough  for  the  girls.  He  had  only  to  read 
the  beautiful  thought  that  "spring  is  the  pleasantest  season  of 
the  year".  Now  and  then  a  new  girl  from  the  east,  awfully 
precise,  would  begin  her  essay,  "Spring  is  the  most  pleasant 
season  of  the  year",  and  her  effort  would  be  called  down  with 
derisive  laughter,  whereat  she  walked  to  her  seat,  very  stiffly 
with  a  proud,  dry-eyed  look  in  her  face,  only  to  lay  her  head 
upon  her  desk  when  she  reached  it  and  weep  silently  until  school 
closed.  But  speaking  pieces  did  not  meet  with  the  favor  of 
the  boys,  save  one  or  two  boys  who  were  in  training  by  their 
parents  for  congressmen  or  presidents. 

The  rest  of  us,  who  were  just  boys,  with  no  desire  to  be 
anything  else,  endured  the  tyranny  of  compositions  about  a 

27 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

month,  and  then  resolved  to  abolish  the  whole  business  by  a 
general  revolt.  Big  and  little,  we  agreed  to  stand  by  each  other, 
break  up  the  new  exercise  and  get  back  to  the  old  order  of 
things,  the  hurdle  races  in  mental  arithmetic  and  the  geographi 
cal  chants  which  we  could  run  and  intone  together. 

Was  I  a  mutineer?  Well,  say,  son,  your  pa  was  a  consti 
tutional  conspirator.  He  was  in  the  color  guard.  You  see, 
the  first  boy  called  on  for  a  declamation  was  to  announce  the 
strike,  and  as  my  name  stood  very  high — in  the  alphabetical 
roll  of  pupils — I  had  an  excellent  chance  of  leading  the  assault 
ing  column,  a  distinction  for  which  I  was  not  at  all  ambitious, 
being  a  stripling  of  tender  years,  ruddy  countenance  and  sen 
sitive  feelings.  However,  I  was  stiffened  to  my  soul,  girded 
on  my  armor  by  slipping  an  atlas  back  under  my  jacket,  and 
was  ready  for  the  fray,  feeling  a  little  terrified  shiver  of  de 
light  as  I  thought  that  the  first  lick  Mr.  Hinman  gave  me 
would  make  him  think  he  had  broken  my  back. 

The  hour  of  speaking  pieces,  an  hour  big  with  fate,  arrived 
on  time.  A  boy  named  Aby  Abbot  was  called  up  ahead  of  me, 
but  he  happened  to  be  one  of  the  presidential  aspirants  (he  was 
mate  on  an  Illinois  steamboat,  stern-wheeler,  at  that,  the  last 
I  knew  of  him)  and,  of  course,  he  flunked  and  said  his  piece — 
a  sadly  prophetic  selection — "Mr.  President,  it  is  natural  for 
men  to  indulge  in  the  illusions  of  hope."  We  made  such  sug 
gestive  and  threatening  gestures  at  him,  however,  when  Mr. 
Hinman  was  not  looking,  that  he  forgot  half  his  "piece",  broke 
down  and  cried.  He  also  cried  after  school,  a  little  more 
bitterly  and  with  far  betterreason. 

Then,  after  an  awful  pause,  in  which  the  conspirators 
could  hear  the  beating  of  each  other's  hearts,  my  name  was 
called. 

I  sat  still  at  my  desk  and  said: 

"I  ain't  going  to  speak  no  piece." 

Mr.  Hinman  looked  greatly  surprised  and  asked : 

"Why  not,  Robert?" 

"  Because  there  ain't  going  to  be  any  more  speaking  pieces." 

The  teacher's  eyes  grew  round  and  big  as  he  inquired: 

"Who  says  there  will  not?" 

I  said,  in  slightly  firmer  tones,  as  I  realized  that  the  moment 
had  come  for  dragging  the  rest  of  the  rebels  into  court: 

28 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

"All  of  us  boys." 

But  Mr.  Hinman  smiled  and  said  quietly  that  he  guessed 
there  would  be  a  "little  more  speaking  before  the  close  of  the 
season".  Then,  laying  his  hand  on  my  shoulder  with  most 
punctilious  but  chilling  courtesy,  he  invited  me  to  the  rostrum. 
The  "rostrum"  was  twenty-five  feet  distant,  but  I  arrived 
there  on  schedule  time  and  only  touched  my  feet  to  the  floor 
twice  on  the  way. 

And  then  and  there  under  Mr.  Hinman's  judicious  coaching 
before  the  assembled  school,  and  with  feelings,  nay,  emo 
tions  which  I  now  shudder  to  recall,  I  did  my  first  "song  and 
dance".  Many  times  before  had  I  stepped  off  a  sole-cachuca 
to  the  staccato  pleading  of  a  fragment  of  slate  frame,  upon 
which  my  tutor  was  a  gifted  performer,  but  never  until  that 
day  did  I  accompany  myself  with  words.  Boy-like  I  had 
chosen  for  my  piece  a  poem  sweetly  expressive  of  those  peace 
ful  virtues  which  I  most  heartily  despised.  So  that  my  per 
formance  at  the  inauguration  of  the  strike  as  Mr.  Hinman 
conducted  the  overture,  ran  something  like  this: 

"  Oh,  not  for  me  (whack)  is  the  rolling  (whack)  drum, 

Or  the  (whack)  (whack)  trumpet's  wild  (whack)  appeal 

(whack) ; 
Or  the  cry  (swish,  whack)  of  (boo-hoo-hoo)  war  when  (whack) 

foe  is  coming  (ouch) 

Or  the  (ow-wow)  brightly  (whack)  flashing  (whack,  whack) 
steel  (wah-hoo,  wah-hoo)." 

Thus  I  illustrated  the  seven  stanzas  of  this  beautiful  poem. 
I  really  had  selected  it  to  please  my  mother,  whom  I  had 
invited  to  be  present  when  I  supposed  I  would  deliver  it.  But 
the  fact  that  she  attended  a  missionary  meeting  at  the  Baptist 
church  that  afternoon  made  me  a  friend  of  missions  forever. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  then,  that  my  pantomime  kept  pace  and  time 
with  Mr.  Hinman's  system  of  punctuation  until  the  last  line 
was  sobbed  and  I  went  to  my  seat  in  a  mist  of  tears  and  sat 
down  gingerly  and  sideways,  only  wondering  why  an  inscrutable 
Providence  had  given  to  the  rugged  rhinoceros  the  hide  which 
in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  had  plainly  been  prepared  for 
the  schoolboy. 

But  I  quickly  forgot  my  own  sorrow  and  dried  my  tears 
with  laughter  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  subsequent  acts  of  the 

29 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

opera.  As  the  chorus  developed  and  the  plot  and  action,  Mr. 
Hinman,  who  had  been  somewhat  gentle  with  me,  dealt  firmly 
with  the  larger  boy  who  followed,  and  there  was  a  scene  of 
revelry  for  the  next  twenty  minutes.  The  old  man  shook  Bill 
Morrison  until  his  teeth  rattled  so  you  couldn't  hear  him  cry. 
He  hit  Mickey  McCann,  the  tough  boy  from  the  lower  prairie, 
and  Mickey  ran  out  and  lay  down  in  the  snow  to  cool  off.  He 
hit  Jake  Bailey  across  the  legs  with  a  slate  frame  and  it  hurt 
so  that  Jake  couldn't  howl — he  just  opened  his  mouth  wide, 
held  up  his  hands,  gasped  and  forgot  his  own  name.  He 
pushed  Bill  Haskell  into  a  seat  and  the  bench  broke. 

He  ran  across  the  room  and  reached  out  for  Lem  Harkins, 
and  Lem  had  a  fit  before  the  old  man  touched  him.  He  shook 
Dan  Stevenson  for  two  minutes  and  when  he  let  him  go  Dan 
walked  around  his  own  desk  five  times  before  he  could  find  it 
and  then  he  couldn't  sit  down  without  holding  on.  He  whipped 
the  two  Knowltons  with  a  skate  strap  in  each  hand  at  the  same 
time,  and  the  Greenwood  family  all  at  once  with  a  girl's  skipping 
rope,  and  they  raised  such  a  united  cry  and  wail  that  the  clock 
stopped. 

He  took  a  twist  in  Bill  Rodecker's  front  hair,  and  Bill  slept 
with  his  eyes  open  for  a  week.  He  kept  the  atmosphere  of 
that  school  room  full  of  dust  and  splinters  and  lint,  weeping, 
wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth  until  he  reached  the  end  of  the 
alphabet  and  all  hearts  ached  and  wearied  of  the  inhuman 
strife  and  wicked  contentions.  Then  he  stood  up  before  us  a 
sickening  tangle  of  slate  frames,  straps,  ebony  ferule  and  skip 
ping  rope,  a  smile  on  his  kind  face,  and  asked  in  clear  triumphant 
tones: 

"Who  says  there  isn't  going  to  be  any  more  speaking 
pieces?" 

And  every  last  boy  in  that  school  sprang  to  his  feet.  Stand 
ing  there  as  one  human  being  with  one  great  mouth,  we  shrieked 
in  concerted  anguish: 

"Nobody  don't!" 

And  your  pa,  my  son,  who  led  that  strike,  has  been  "speak 
ing  pieces"  ever  since. 

On  the  occasion  of  the  commemoration  of  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  Peoria  High  School  in  1906, 
30 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

his  niece,  Ellen  Muir,  read  a  letter  from  Mr.  Burdette, 
which  tells  the  story  of  his  high  school  days  there: 

1861  was  a  class  composed  exclusively  of  "stars".  There 
was  too  much  talent  to  play  in  one  combination — the  house 
wouldn't  hold  the  people.  So  Robert  Gregg  and  Sewell  Ford 
were  graduated  in  the  spring,  and  at  Christmas  Mary  Luccock, 
John  Chalmers  and  I  stepped  over  the  threshold.  I  stood  at 
the  foot  of  the  class,  but  by  persuasion  mingled  with  guile, 
I  induced  my  colleagues  to  adopt  for  our  class  motto,  "  Ex  pede 
Hereulem",  and  once  more  I  sat  in  the  red  cart  close  to  the 
driver,  with  the  unplugged  melons  sowed  behind  us  in  appe 
tizing  rows,  up  to  the  load  line.  My  "commencement  essay" 
foreshadowed  my  subsequent  career  as  a  statesman.  It  was 
"The  Press  and  the  Ballot  Box".  I  have  preserved  that 
rather  remarkable  state  paper.  Would  you  like  to  see  it? 
For  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  you  may.  I  sometimes  read 
it  myself.  It  mitigates  the  horror  of  approaching  death. 
Nothing,  my  children,  is  ever  written  in  vain,  except  a  protest 
against  the  unfair  assessment  of  taxes  on  your  own  property. 

When  the  duplex  class  of  '61  went  out,  I  ceased  to  be  an 
actor,  factor  or  malefactor  in  the  drama  of  the  Peoria  High 
School.  My  school  days  were  ended,  but  my  education  had 
just  begun.  Because  there  has  never  been  any  school  since 
that  day  to  divide  my  affection  and  loyalty,  my  love  for  the 
old  school  has  been  constant,  deepening  in  its  loyalty  and  ten 
derness  as  the  years  multiply  between  today  and  the  yester 
days  at  school.  The  days  and  the  boys  and  the  girls  that  were 
and  are  "dear  as  the  ruddy  drops  that  warm  my  heart". 

I  send  my  greeting  to  the  school  of  yesterday  and  today — 
I  send  to  the  graduates  the  love  of  an  Old  Boy.  To  think  that 
more  than  forty  years  ago  I  knew  nearly  as  much  as  the  young 
est  and  most  omniscient  of  you.  Come  up  into  the  bigger  and 
higher  school  where  the  desks  are  more  comfortable,  the  lessons 
are  harder,  the  hours  longer,  the  teachers  more  pitilessly  exact 
ing,  where  the  study  is  more  of  a  joy  and  the  rewards  are  higher 
and  more  justly  bestowed. 

Come  right  up  into  the  cart  and  sit  beside  your  Uncle 
Robert.  Then,  whenever  you're  hungry,  you  may  cut  a  nice, 
ripe,  juicy  melon.  The  cart's  full  of  'em. 

31 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Er — just  before  I  close.  About  the  melons.  Don't  want 
to  mislead  you.  There  are  plenty  of  melons.  In  fact,  the 
whole  world  is  one  big  melon  patch.  And  it  is  true  that  some 
carts  are  empty  and  some  are  full  of  melons.  But,  one  little 
pointer,  my  children.  You've  got  to  pick  your  own  melons 
and  load  'em  into  the  cart  yourself.  Then  you're  sure  they 
are  there.  God  bless  every  boy  and  girl  of  you. 

In  a  newspaper  letter  touching  revived  memories  of 
all  his  school  days,  he  says: 

I  was  a  maverick  when  I  started  to  school,  but  successive 
dynasties  of  instruction  put  the  proper  brand  all  over  me  before 
I  was  finally  broken  to  the  yoke  and  plow.  I  wasn't  professedly 
a  believer  in  corporal  punishment,  but  I  was  better  than  most 
professors  and  nominal  believers — I  practiced  the  doctrine 
right  along;  at  least,  I  lived  up  to  it;  it  did  me  good  and  does 
me  good  unto  this  day.  It  makes  a  great  many  things  beauti 
fully  clear  to  me.  "  Now  no  chastening  for  the  present  seemeth 
to  be  joyous,"  says  the  great  apostle,  "but  grievous."  I  don't 
need  any  commentary  on  that  passage.  I  am  a  seminary 
exegete  on  that  part  of  the  Epistle. 

But  I  can  truly  say  that  all  my  chastisements  at  school 
are  at  this  day  among  my  most  joyous  memories.  I  laugh 
every  time  I  think  of  one.  Not  so  much  about  the  whipping, 
as  over  the  recollection  of  the  jolly  good  time  I  had  earning  it. 
I  was  as  recklessly  happy-  as  a  man  who  is  acquiring  the  gout 
for  his  grandsons. 

But  all  that  went  in  the  curriculum;  my  school  days  were 
happy,  seriously  speaking.  I  was  a  happy  boy;  all  the  year 
round  I  was  happy.  And  in  the  loyal,  tender,  loving  niches 
of  my  heart  I  have  builded  the  fairest  shrines  my  affection  can 
fashion,  wherein  I  have  placed  the  images  of  the  saints  who 
were  my  school  teachers.  Some  of  them  are  living;  some  are 
dead;  all  are  old  and  gray.  But  there,  where  I  alone  can  see 
them,  they  are  all  living;  they  are  all  young,  with  the  morning 
light  of  love  and  enthusiasm  shining  in  their  faces.  Memory 
makes  them  beautiful,  and  the  years  cluster  their  brows  like 
stars. 

Coincident  with  the  "  barefoot  days"  and  the  school 
days  was  an  influence  which  was  to  act  upon  one  of  the 
32 


DR.  HENRY  G.  WESTON,  WHOM  MR.  BURDETTE  TITLED  "GENTLEST  OF  ALL 

PROPHETS" 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD 

strongest  forces  of  Robert's  nature.  Henry  G.  Westcn, 
pastor  of  the  Baptist  Church,  and  friend  of  the  Burdette 
family  was  the  preacher  from  whom  Robert  was  to 
gain  his  most  serious  impression  of  life  and  work.  Mr. 
Burdette's  admiration  for  him  was  great,  and  his  love 
tender  through  all  the  years,  and  he  gives  us  some 
characteristic  reminiscences  in  a  sketch  written  many 
years  later,  1902,  when  he  himself  was  a  preacher  of  the 
Gospel  and  Dr.  Weston  was  entering  the  afternoon 
time  of  his  life: 

Tall,  erect  as  a  soldier,  strong  as  an  athlete;  a  perfectly 
healthy  man  with  no  record  of  triumphant  prowess  in  golf, 
tennis  or  football;  never  much  of  a  fisherman,  nothing  at  all 
of  a  hunter — I  know  he  never  fired  a  gun  in  his  life,  and  I  do 
not  think  he  ever  had  one  in  his  hand;  never  at  all  given  to 
"that  tired  feeling",  nor  addicted  to  long  vacations;  a  hale 
man  at  eighty-two,  doing  his  daily  work,  preaching  and  teach 
ing;  making  long  railway  journeys  to  meet  his  engagements; 
eating  his  bread  with  his  own  teeth;  all  his  life  a  preacher, 
never  anything  else  than  a  preacher  and  a  teacher  of  preachers — 
Henry  G.  Weston,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  gentlest  of  the  prophets! 
Mention  his  name  anywhere  in  this  United  States,  and  some 
face  in  the  listening  circle  will  lighten  with  love  in  the  eyes  and 
a  tender  smile  wreathing  the  lips.  When  he  makes  heaven  glad 
with  his  coming  his  memory  in  this  world  will  be  a  perfume, 
old-fashioned  and  sweet  as  the  odor  of  the  roses  at  Crozer. 

As  life  within  the  home  was  daily  fired  and  stimu 
lated  by  religious  and  political  discussions,  so  education 
from  without  was  to  be  a  co-mingling  of  these  two  strong 
inspirations.  During  these  same  Peoria  days,  Mr. 
Burdette  was  as  a  boy  to  hear  his  first  political  debates 
from  the  rugged  men  of  that  western  country,  who 
ofttimes  sat  on  the  rocks  by  the  old  Monroe's  Mill  on 
the  Kickapoo  and  talked  of  the  things  then  agitating 
the  Union.  Lincoln  and  Douglas  were  stumping  the 
State  of  Illinois.  Fremont's  name  was  the  first 
3  33 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Republican  battle  cry,  and  "free  soil,  free  press,  free 
men,  free  speech  and  Fremont "  rang  through  the  land 
like  the  glad  prophecy  it  was.  The  names  of  Lincoln, 
Douglas,  Buchanan,  Pierce,  Scott  and  Seward  were 
heard  often  in  the  wayside  and  village  arguments  and 
debates  of  those  days. 

Out  of  the  boyish  conclusions  reached  from  the 
hearing  of  those  arguments  was  formed  the  determina 
tion  that  led  him,  after  the  election  of  Lincoln  and  the 
beginning  of  the  Civil  War,  as  a  lad  of  eighteen,  to 
enlist  with  the  Illinois  regiment  that  went  from  Peoria. 

Regarding  this  same  period,  an  aunt  of  his,  of  whom 
he  was  very  fond,  and  with  whom  he  corresponded 
most  affectionately  up  to  the  very  last  months  of  his 
life,  writes: 

Just  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War,  Rob  wrote  me  that 
he  belonged  to  the  Wide-awake  Club,  and  that  they  were 
coming  down  to  run  Brackenbridge  and  Bell  voters  into  the 
sea,  sink  South  Carolina,  etc.  I  was  furious  and  wrote  back 
to  him  to  "come  on,  Virginia  has  six  feet  of  ground  for  every 
Yankee  that  invades  her  sacred  soil."  Brother  Fred,  Rob's 
father,  wrote  to  my  father  that  while  he  enjoyed  our  "brilliant" 
correspondence,  he  doubted  the  propriety  of  allowing  it  in  the 
exciting  times,  so  we  were  required  to  write  of  other  things 
than  war.  We  continued  to  have  our  fun,  however,  for  he 
always  had  an  imaginary  sweetheart  for  each  of  us. 


34 


CHAPTER  II 

ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

OLDER  school  boys  had  enlisted  as  volunteers 
and  gone  to  the  Bar.    Lincoln  had  issued  his 
call  for  volunteers  for  three  years  or  for  the 
war.    The  question  of  enlistment  had  been 
tearfully  and  prayerfully  discussed  at  home  in  the  dark 
days  of  early  1862.    Mr.  Burdette's  father  and  mother 
were  intense  in  their  patriotism  and  loyalty  to  the  North 
and  its  cause,  and  it  was  agreed  that  he  should  go  when 
he  had  reached  his  eighteenth  birthday. 

In  his  "Drums  of  the  47th,"  a  book  of  recollections 
of  incidents  of  his  service,  he  says: 

I  was  eighteen  years  old  that  thirtieth  of  July.  I  was 
lying  in  the  shade  of  a  cherry  tree,  and  at  a  window  nearby 
my  mother  was  sewing.  She  sang  as  she  sewed,  in  a  sweet 
fashion  that  women  have — singing,  rocking,  thinking,  dream 
ing;  the  swaying  sewing-chair  weaving  all  those  occupations 
together  in  a  reverie-pattern  that  is  half  real,  half  vision. 
She  was  singing  sweet  old  songs  that  I  had  heard  her  sing  ever 
since  I  was  a  baby — songs  of  love,  and  home,  and  peace;  a 
song  of  the  robin,  and  the  carrier  dove,  and  one  little  French 
song  of  which  I  was  very  fond,  "  Jeanette  and  Jeannot." 

It  was  such  a  quiet,  dreamy,  peaceful  July  afternoon. 
There  was  the  sound  of  a  gentle  wind  in  the  top  of  the  cherry 
tree,  softly  carrying  an  aeolian  accompaniment  to  my  mother's 
singing.  Once  a  robin  called.  A  bush  of  "  old-fashioned  roses  " 
perfumed  the  breath  of  the  song.  A  cricket  chirped  in  the  grass. 

Boom!  A  siege-gun  fired  away  off  down  in  Charleston, 
and  a  shell  burst  above  Fort  Sumter,  wreathing  an  angry  halo 
about  the  most  beautiful  flag  the  sunshine  ever  kissed.  From 
ocean  to  ocean  the  land  quivered  as  with  the  shock  of  an  earth 
quake.  Far  away,  from  the  ramparts  of  Sumter,  a  bugle 
shrilled  across  the  states  as  though  it  were  the  voice  of  the 

35 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

trumpet  of  the  angel  calling  the  sheeted  dead  to  rise.  And 
close  at  hand  the  flam,  flam,  flam  of  a  drum  broke  into  the  wild 
thrill  of  the  long  roll — the  fierce  snarls  of  the  dogs  of  war, 
awakened  by  that  signal  shot  from  Beauregard's  batteries. 

I  leaped  to  my  feet,  seized  my  cap  and  ran  to  the  window 
to  wind  my  arms  around  my  mother's  neck. 

"Mother,"  I  said,  "I'm  going!" 

Her  beautiful  face  turned  white.  She  held  me  close  to  her 
heart  a  long,  silent,  praying  time.  Then  she  held  me  off  and 
kissed  me — a  kiss  so  tender  that  it  rests  upon  my  lips  today — 
and  said: 

"God  bless  my  boy!" 

And  with  my  mother's  blessing  I  hurried  down  to  the 
recruiting  station,  and  soon  I  marched  away  with  a  column  of 
men  and  boys,  still  keeping  step  to  the  drum. 

It  was  to  be  more  than  three  years  before  he  saw 
again  the  mother  who  bade  him  a  tearful  good-bye,  and 
before  he  knew  again  the  peace  of  a  home  and  the 
shade  of  the  cherry  tree. 

All  the  way  [he  says],  from  Peoria  to  Corinth,  from  Corinth 
to  Vicksburg,  up  the  Red  River  Country,  down  to  Mobile  and 
Fort  Blakely  and  back  to  Tupelo  and  Selma,  the  voice  and  the 
song  of  the  prayer  followed  me  and  at  last  led  me  back  home. 

The  record  of  his  service  found  among  his  papers 
in  his  own  handwriting  shows  that  he  enlisted  at 
Peoria,  Illinois,  on  August  4,  1862,  in  Company  "C" 
of  the  47th  Illinois  Infantry  Regiment,  and  was  dis 
charged  at  Selma,  Alabama,  July  20,  1865,  and  below 
that  record  is  a  note  in  which  he  says: 

Detailed  as  orderly  at  Headquarters,  3rd  Division,  15th 
Army  Corps,  Brigadier  General  Asboth  commanding.  Re 
mained  at  these  headquarters  (afterward  1st  Division,  16th 
Army  Corps)  until  discharged  at  Selma,  Alabama,  at  the  close 
of  the  war,  July  20,  1865. 

And  upon  a  leaf  from  an  old  memorandum  book  was 
found  a  list  of  the  engagements  in  which  he  had  taken 
36 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  AS  A  SOLDIER 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

part,  numbered  from  1  to  21,  beginning  with  Jackson, 
Mississippi,  May  14,  1863,  and  ending  with  Spanish 
Fort,  April  8,  1865.  He  received  honorable  mention 
for  bravery  in  the  Siege  of  Vicksburg. 

His  letters  written  in  the  course  of  the  war  to  the 
various  members  of  his  family  at  Peoria  were  graphic, 
and  sent  with  such  regularity  as  was  possible.  Fortu 
nately  they  were  preserved  with  tender  care  in  the 
family  archives,  and  came  into  my  hands  after  his 
death — boyish  descriptions  of  battles  and  life  in  camp, 
expressions  of  patriotic  resolve,  humorous  accounts  of 
his  experiences  when  there  was  humor  to  be  had,  wise 
and  admonitory  paragraphs  to  his  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  always  declarations  of  his  good  health  and  cheer 
fulness.  Fifty  years  afterwards  he  wrote: 

I  went  into  the  army  a  light-hearted  boy,  with  a  face  as 
smooth  as  a  girl's  and  hair  as  brown  as  my  beautiful  mother's. 
I  fought  through  more  than  a  score  of  battles  and  romped 
through  more  than  a  hundred  frolics.  I  had  the  rollicking 
time  of  my  life  and  came  home  stronger  than  an  athlete,  with 
robust  health  builded  to  last  the  rest  of  my  life. 

He  was  tantalizingly  short  and  small  of  stature: 

When  I  went  into  the  recruiting  office  [he  wrote],  two 
lieutenants  of  the  Forty-seventh  Illinois  Regiment,  Samuel 
A.  L.  Law  of  C  Company  and  Frank  Biser  of  B,  looked  at  me 
without  the  slightest  emotion  of  interest.  When  I  told  them 
what  I  wanted,  they  smiled,  and  Lieutenant  Biser  shook  his 
head.  But  Lieutenant  Law  spoke  encouragingly,  and  pointed 
to  the  standard  of  military  height,  a  pine  stick  standing  out 
from  the  wall  in  rigid  uncompromising  insistence,  five  feet  three 
inches  from  the  floor.  As  I  walked  toward  it  I  could  see  it 
slide  up,  until  it  seemed  to  lift  itself  seven  feet  above  my  ambi 
tious  head.  If  I  could  have  kept  up  the  stretching  strain  I 
put  on  every  longitudinal  muscle  in  my  body  in  that  minute 
of  fate,  I  would  have  been  as  tall  as  Abraham  Lincoln  by  the 
close  of  the  war.  As  it  was,  when  I  stepped  under  that  Rhada- 

37 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

man  thine  rod,  I  felt  my  scalp-lock,  which  was  very  likely 
standing  on  end  with  apprehension,  brush  lightly  against  it. 
The  officers  laughed,  and  one  of  them  dictated  to  the  sergeant- 
clerk: 

"Five  feet  three." 

My  heart  beat  calmly  once  more  and  I  shrank  back  to 
my  normal  five  feet  two  and  seven-eighths  plus.  That  was 
nearly  fifty  years  ago,  and  taking  all  the  thought  I  could  to 
add  to  my  stature,  I  have  only  passed  that  tantalizing  standard 
an  inch  and  a  half.  I  received  certain  instructions  concerning 
my  reporting  at  the  office  daily,  and  as  I  passed  out  I  heard  the 
sergeant  say:  "That  child  will  serve  most  of  his  time  in  the 
hospital." 

But  in  three  years'  service  I  never  saw  the  inside  of  a  hos 
pital  save  on  such  occasions  as  I  was  detailed  to  nurse  the 
grown  men;  I  never  lost  one  day  off  duty  on  account  of  sickness. 
There  were  times  when  I  was  so  dead  tired,  and  worn  out, 
and  faint  with  hunger  that  my  legs  wabbled  as  I  walked,  and 
my  eyes  were  so  dry  and  hot  with  lack  of  sleep,  that  I  would 
have  given  a  month's  pay  for  floor  space  in  Andersonville 
prison.  But  whenever  I  turned  my  eyes  longingly  toward  the 
roadside,  passing  a  good  place  to  "drop  out",  I  could  hear  that 
big  sergeant's  pitying  sneer,  and  I  braced  up  and  offered  to 
carry  my  file-leader's  knapsack  for  a  mile  or  two. 

The  47th  was  a  fighting  regiment,  and  fought  under 
five  colonels,  all  of  whom  he  was  accustomed  to  call 
"old-fashioned"  in  that  they  rode  close  up  to  the  firing 
line.  John  Briner,  who  marched  away  with  the  47th 
from  Peoria  in  '61,  died  in  the  service,  being  re-appointed 
Colonel  of  the  re-organized  regiment  in  1865.  William 
A.  Thrush  was  killed  at  the  head  of  his  regiment  at  the 
battle  of  Corinth,  October  3, 1862.  John  N.  Cromwell, 
"boy  Colonel",  was  killed  at  Jackson,  Miss.,  May 
16,  1863.  John  Dixon  McClure  was  wounded  nigh 
to  death  in  the  siege  of  Vicksburg,  June  20,  1863. 
Daniel  L.  Miles,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  was  killed  in  the 
battle  of  Farmington,  Miss.  In  truth,  the  47th  was  a 
fighting  regiment. 
38 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

It  was  not  to  be  long  after  his  enlistment  before, 
as  a  recruit,  he  had  his  first  impresion  of  battle,  for  at 
Corinth,  he  says  in  his  recollections: 

Twenty-eight  thousand  Confederates  dashed  themselves 
against  our  line  of  defense  those  two  savage  days  like  waves 
of  the  sea.  My  own  regiment  lay  in  the  ditch  of  Battery 
Robinette,  which  bore  the  brunt  of  the  final  attack.  Curtains 
of  infantry  connected  the  forest.  For  a  wall  of  sand  is  as  good 
to  stop  the  sea  as  a  sea-wall  of  granite.  Twenty  thousand 
boys  in  blue  there  were  under  Rosecrans,  fresh  from  fighting 
the  same  foes  at  luka,  where  our  major,  Cromwell,  had  been 
taken  prisoner.  The  fighting  on  the  third  at  Corinth  punished 
the  Federals  severely.  At  half-past  nine  o'clock  on  the  morn 
ing  of  the  fourth,  Price's  column,  formed  en  masse,  came 
charging  along  the  Bolivar  road  like  a  human  torrent.  It 
moved  in  phalanx  shape  through  a  storm  of  iron  and  lead  from 
batteries  and  infantry,  and  drove  through  all  opposition,  the 
men  bowing  their  faces,  but  pushing  on,  as  men  crowd  their 
way  against  a  driving  storm.  As  it  came  within  rifle  range 
the  phalanx  divided  into  two  columns  covering  the  front  of 
the  forts.  It  captured  Fort  Richardson  and  General  Rose 
crans'  headquarters,  in  front  of  which  seven  dead  Confederates 
were  found  after  the  battle.  It  seemed  that  nothing  could 
stop  that  onrush  of  determined  men.  But  in  the  score  of  min 
utes  that  so  often  decides  a  battle,  the  Fifty-sixth  Illinois 
recaptured  Battery  Richardson,  the  heavy  assaulting  column 
was  thrown  into  confusion,  and  the  splendid  charge  was  turned 
into  a  swift  retreat.  The  whole  affair  lasted  half  an  hour. 

Meanwhile  Van  Dorn's  column,  which  should  have  co 
operated  simultaneously  with  that  under  Price,  but  was  delayed 
by  the  natural  obstacles  of  broken  ground,  tangled  swamps 
and  densely-wooded  thickets,  came  charging  in  on  the  Chewalla 
road.  Texans  and  Mississippians  these  fighters  were.  I  was 
greatly  disturbed  to  perceive  they  were  headed  straight  for 
our  position — Forts  Williams  and  Robinette;  but  then  I 
thought  of  those  fearful  Parrott  thirty-pounders  and  the  ter 
rible  guns  of  our  own  Robinette  trained  point-blank  on  that 
charging  whirlwind.  Colonel  Rogers  himself  led  his  Texans, 
densely  formed,  in  a  close  charging  line  massed  four  deep,  the 
Mississippians  keeping  pace  with  them. 

39 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

The  infantrymen  sprang  to  their  feet.  Volley  after  volley 
of  musketry  helped  the  big  guns  tear  the  assaulting  lines  to 
pieces.  But  they  kept  on.  They  struck  the  infantry  supports 
as  a  great  combing  wave  strikes  a  reef.  They  beat  us  down 
with  their  muskets  and  thrust  us  away  with  bayonet  lunges. 
Colonel  Rogers  leaped  the  ditch  at  the  head  of  his  men  and 
was  killed  on  the  slope  of  the  parapet.  We  saw  the  soldiers 
in  gray  swarming  into  the  embrasures,  fighting  with  the  gunners 
who  met  them  hand-to-hand  with  muskets  and  sponge  staffs. 
The  Ohio  brigade  of  Stanley's  division,  firing  withering  volleys, 
came  to  the  rescue  of  the  forts  and  their  supports,  and  Con 
federate  reinforcements  hurried  into  the  maelstrom  of  fire 
and  steel.  Our  Colonel,  Thrush,  was  killed,  shot  through  the 
heart.  Step  by  step  we  crowded  them  back  until  they  shared 
the  fate  of  the  other  column  and  turned  in  retreat.  The  battle 
was  over. 

That  night  I  was  detailed  on  duty  with  the  parties  that  go 
over  the  field,  looking  for  the  wounded  and  the  dead,  succoring 
the  living,  burying  the  dead.  The  savage  day  had  been  a 
baptism  of  fire.  The  night  was  a  baptism  of  tears.  The  day 
had  been  the  terrible  inspiration  of  battle.  The  night  was  the 
meditation  of  sorrow.  On  the  battle-field  Death  was  the  grisly 
King  of  Terrors,  wearing  the  black  plumes  of  a  mighty  con 
queror,  naked,  horrible,  and  bloody  in  his  brutality. 

We  found  a  dead  Confederate  lying  on  his  back,  his  out 
spread  fingers  stretched  across  the  stock  of  his  rifle  lying  at 
his  side.  He  was  one  of  Rogers'  Texans.  Fifty-seven  of  them 
we  had  found  lying  in  the  ditch  of  Battery  Robinette.  I 
covered  his  face  with  the  slouch  hat  still  on  his  head  and  took 
off  the  haversack  slung  to  his  neck  that  it  might  not  swing  as 
we  carried  him  to  his  sleeping-chamber,  so  cool  and  quiet  and 
dark  after  the  savage  tumult  and  dust  and  smoke  of  that  day 
of  horror. 

"Empty,  isn't  it?"  asked  the  soldier  working  with  me.  I 
put  my  hand  in  it  and  drew  forth  a  handful  of  roasted  acorns. 
I  showed  them  to  my  comrade.  "That's  all,"  I  said. 

"And  he's  been  fighting  like  a  tiger  for  two  days  on  that 
hog's  forage,"  he  commented.  We  gazed  at  the  face  of  the 
dead  soldier  with  new  feelings.  By  and  by  my  comrade  said: 

"I  hate  this  war  and  the  thing  that  caused  it.  I  was 
40 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

taught  to  hate  slavery  before  I  was  taught  to  hate  sin.  I  love 
the  Union  as  I  love  my  mother — better.  I  think  this  is  the 
wickedest  war  that  was  ever  waged  in  the  world.  But  this" — 
and  he  took  some  of  the  acorns  from  my  hand — "this  is  what 
I  call  patriotism." 

"Comrade,"  I  said,  "I'm  going  to  send  these  home  to  the 
Peoria  Transcript.  I  want  them  to  tell  the  editor  this  war 
won't  be  ended  until  there  is  a  total  failure  of  the  acorn  crop. 
I  want  the  folks  at  home  to  know  what  manner  of  men  we  are 
fighting." 

That  was  early  in  my  experience  as  a  soldier.  I  never 
changed  my  opinion  of  the  cause  of  the  Confederacy.  I  was 
more  and  more  devoted  to  the  Union  as  the  war  went  on.  But 
I  never  questioned  the  sincerity  of  the  men  in  the  Confederate 
ranks.  I  realized  how  dearly  a  man  must  love  his  own  section 
who  would  fight  for  it  on  parched  acorns.  I  wished  that  his 
love  and  patriotism  had  been  broader,  reaching  from  the  Gulf 
to  the  Lakes — a  love  for  the  Union  rather  than  for  a  state. 
But  I  understood  him.  I  hated  his  attitude  toward  the  Union 
as  much  as  ever,  but  I  admired  the  man.  And  after  Corinth 
I  never  could  get  a  prisoner  half-way  to  the  rear  and  have  any 
thing  left  in  my  haversack. 

Oh,  I  too  have  suffered  the  pangs  of  hunger  for  my  dear 
country,  as  all  soldiers  have  done  now^and  then.  But  not  as 
that  Confederate  soldier  did.  We  went  hungry  at  times,  when 
rain  and  mud  or  the  interference  of  the  enemy  detained  the 
supply  trains.  But  that  man  half-starved.  That's  different. 

After  the  battle  of  Nashville,  December,  1864,  we  marched 
in  pursuit  of  Hood  as  far  as  the  Tennessee  River.  There,  for 
more  than  a  week,  we  subsisted  on  corn — not  canned  corn  and 
not  even  popcorn,  but  common,  yellow  field  corn  on  the  cob. 
And  the  row  we  suffering  hero-martyrs  made  about  it! 

A  soldier  was  carrying  a  couple  of  ears  of  corn  to  a  camp- 
fire  to  parch  for  his  supper.  A  mule  tethered  nearby  saw  him 
and  lifted  up  its  dreadful  voice  in  piteous  braying.  The  indig 
nant  warrior  smote  him  in  the  jaw,  crying,  "You  get  nine 
pounds  a  day  and  I  get  only  five,  you  long-eared  glutton,  and 
now  you  want  half  of  mine!" 

Referring  to  the  courage  and  fear  of  a  soldier,  he 

once  wrote: 

41 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Why,  then,  does  the  coward  even  start  to  war? 

For  certainly  he  does  start,  in  every  war  that  is  declared. 
He  is  found  in  every  army.  He  goes  to  war  voluntarily,  many 
times  eagerly,  for  the  cowardly  temperament  is  volatile.  A 
rabbit  is  sprightlier  than  a  bulldog.  The  coward  may  start 
to  war  with  the  valor  born  of  ignorance. 

When  I  enlisted,  I  had  but  one  well-defined  fear.  I  was 
afraid  the  war  would  be  over  before  I  got  into  a  battle.  Every 
time  I  got  hold  of  a  newspaper  or  news  reached  the  camp  by 
courier,  my  heart  sank  with  the  disloyal  dread  that  that  old 
Grant — all  generals  are  "old"  to  the  soldier — had  utterly 
crushed  the  enemy  with  one  terrible  blow,  and  I  would  have 
to  go  home  without  one  battle  story.  It  was  terrible.  How 
ever,  it  didn't  happen.  Though  many  a  time  afterward  I 
wished  it  had. 

I  got  into  my  battle.  After  that  a  second  fear  displaced 
the  first.  I  was  afraid  the  war  would  be  ended  before  I  got 
into  another.  And  again  my  fear  was  an  illusion.  The  war 
kept  on  until  I  got  into  a  score  of  fights. 

And  then,  seeing  perhaps  that  I  was  never  going  to  quit 
first,  the  hosts  of  the  Confederacy  agreed  to  stop  if  I  would. 
At  least,  that  is  the  way  it  appeared  to  me. 

His  letters  home  give  us  the  most  intimate  account 
of  his  life  and  thought  during  these  perilous  days. 
His  father  he  boyishly  refers  to  in  his  letters  as  "the 
General",  and  in  one  of  these  he  unfolds  a  view  of 
homesickness  and  longing  in  the  heart  of  many  a 
soldier  boy  of  the  early  sixties: 

I  have  nothing  else  to  think  of  but  home,  and  must  write  to 
keep  off  homesickness.  It  is  my  favorite  way  of  filling  up  my 
unoccupied  hours.  I  would  rather  write  home  than  read,  or 
even  eat, 

and  for  a  healthy  soldier  this  last  was  surely  an  abun 
dant  testimony. 

In  May,  1863,  he  was  "before  Vieksburg",  as  a 
letter  written  to  his  father  bears  testimony.  This  was 
written,  he  says,  on  "Secesh  paper".  It  was  his  first 
42 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

battle,  and  he  wrote  of  it  on  May  23d,  a  little  more  than 
a  week  afterwards: 

We  neared  Jackson  on  the  13th,  trudging  along  through  the 
dust,  when,  on  coming  to  the  top  of  a  high  hill,  we  saw  the 
5th  Minnesota  deployed  as  skirmishers,  and  advancing  slowly 
into  the  woods.  That  looked  like  fun. 

The  brigade  formed  in  line  of  battle  on  double  quick  and 
loaded,  but  no  enemy  was  found,  so  we  laid  on  our  arms  all 
night,  and  next  morning  in  a  drenching  rain  started  for  Jackson. 
The  boys  kept  their  spirits  up  remarkably  well  all  day,  for  we 
were  very  close  to  the  enemy,  and  we  were  all  resolved  to  eat 
supper  at  Jackson. 

About  eleven  o'clock  we  came  upon  the  Rebs.  Our  bat 
teries  were  placed  in  position  and  the  47th  were  placed  to  sup 
port  the  2d  Iowa  Battery.  The  shell  and  shot  came  over  our 
way  quite  lively,  but  we  all  lay  down  and  they  passed  over  us, 
but  the  "whoo-oo-oo"  of  rifle  shell  sounded  around  us  quite 
merrily.  We  were  on  the  brow  of  a  high  hill  overlooking  a 
wide  open  field.  Through  this  ran  a  creek,  for  which  we  were 
contending. 

The  Rebs  drove  our  skirmishers  back  up  the  field  and  mor 
tally  wounded  a  cannoneer  in  Waterhouse  battery.  Our  bully 
2d  Iowa  boys  soon  silenced  the  Rebel  batteries,  and  then  the 
order  came  for  us  to  advance  and  take  the  creek.  Our  officers 
were  all  very  cool  and  set  good  examples  for  their  men.  When 
we  received  the  order  to  advance,  Col.  Cromwell  asked  if  he 
would  have  time  to  light  his  pipe,  and  rode  along  our  line 
holloaing  for  a  match.  We  advanced  with  fixed  bayonets,  the 
2d  Brigade  in  advance  driving  the  "Rebs"  steadily  before  us, 
and  I  must  give  the  rascals  credit  for  falling  back  in  fine  style. 

We  chased  them  away  from  the  creek,  through  which  we 
charged  in  water  waist-deep,  ran  them  through  the  woods  into 
their  works,  where  they  checked  us  for  a  while,  but  the  2d 
Brigade  could  not  be  refused,  so  we  up  and  at  'em  and  were  the 
first  troops  in  Jackson.  We  left  Jackson  on  the  16th  and 
marched  all  night.  We  are  now  in  front  of  Vicksburg  in  easy 
range  of  their  batteries,  but  the  country  is  so  full  of  deep  ravines 
that  we  are  perfectly  safe. 

That  was  the  boy's  account  of  the  first  skirmish  in 

43 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

which  he  carried  a  musket.  In  "Drums  of  the  47th" 
there  is  an  account  of  the  same  skirmish  from  the  view 
point  of  the  man  approaching  70: 

A  dull  staccato  thunder  of  guns  in  the  distant  front,  a 
galloping  staff-orderly  giving  an  order  to  Colonel  Cromwell, 
which  he  shouted  to  us;  a  sudden  barking  of  many  commands 
from  the  line  officers;  a  double-quicking  of  the  column  into  the 
line,  and  almost  in  the  time  I  have  written  it  we  were  in  line 
of  battle  in  the  woods  before  Jackson,  Mississippi. 

I  heard  Captain  Frank  Biser  shouting  his  customary 
"instructions  to  skirmishers"  as  he  deployed  A  and  B  com 
panies  into  the  skirmish  line,  and  they  disappeared  amid  the 
scrub  oaks:  "Keep  up  a  rapid  fire  in  the  general  direction  of 
the  enemy,  and  yell  all  the  time!"  He  was  very  specific 
regarding  the  kind  of  "yelling",  which  was  to  be  emphatically 
sulphurous.  The  regiment  followed  to  the  brow  of  the  hill 
that  looked  down  on  the  creek,  winding  in  muddy  swirls  and 
many  meanderings  across  the  level  meadows. 

Far  to  our  right  we  could  hear  our  own  battery,  the  Second 
Iowa,  its  bronze  Napoleons  throbbing  like  a  heart  of  fire.  And 
at  our  left  the  Waterhouse  Battery,  of  Chicago,  was  baying 
like  a  wolf-hound  at  the -gray  battalions  down  by  the  little 
Pearl  River.  We  were  supporting  that  battery.  And  we  were 
ordered  to  lie  down  and  keep  ourselves  out  of  sight. 

This  seemed  to  me  excessive  caution.  I  was  a  recruit  in 
my  first  battle.  I  called  it  a  battle.  The  old  soldiers  spoke 
of  it  as  a  fight.  Whatever  it  was,  I  wanted  to  see  it.  I  rose 
up  on  my  knees  to  look  about  me.  It  didn't  look  like  any 
picture  of  a  battle  I  ever  saw  in  a  book.  The  man  with  whom  I 
touched  elbows  at  my  right,  Doc  Worthington,  of  Peoria, 
and  an  old  schoolfellow  before  we  were  comrades,  said  with  a 
note  of  admiration  in  his  voice: 

"Haven't  those  fellows  got  a  splendid  line?" 

I  saw  a  long  line  of  gray-jacketed  skirmishers  doing  a 
beautiful  skirmish  drill.  Puff-puff-puff,  the  little  clouds  of 
blue  smoke  broke  out  from  the  gray  line  moving  through  the 
mist  that  was  drifting  across  the  field.  I  saw  the  blue-bloused 
skirmish  line  come  into  view  from  the  woods  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill.  I  saw  a  man  stumble  and  fall  on  his  face.  Not  until  he 

44 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

did  not  get  up  and  go  on  with  the  advancing  line  did  I  realize 
that  he  had  not  stumbled. 

I  had  a  strange  trouble  with  my  breath  for  a  boy  with 
lungs  like  a  colt  and  a  heart  that  is  strong  unto  this  day.  An 
officer  came  riding  down  the  line,  pulled  up  his  horse,  asked  a 
soldier  for  a  match,  calmly  lighted  his  pipe,  puffed  it  into 
energetic  action,  and  rode  down  the  hill  after  the  skirmishers. 
How  I  admired  his  wonderful  coolness!  By  the  time  I  went 
into  the  next  battle  I  knew  that  the  pipe  trick  was  not  a  symp 
tom  of  daredevil,  reckless  coolness,  but  only  of  natural  human 
nervousness.  The  man  smoked  because  he  was  too  nervous 
not  to. 

I  saw  the  skirmishers  now  and  then  rush  suddenly  together, 
rallying  by  fours  and  squads  as  a  little  troop  of  cavalry  menaced 
the  line  with  a  rush — a  charge,  we  called  it  then.  I  saw  them 
deploy  just  as  quickly,  and  heard  them  cheering  as  a  rapid 
volley  admonished  the  troopers  with  a  few  empty  saddles. 
Then  I  saw  the  gray  line  advance  resolutely,  and  with  much 
dodging  and  zigzagging  our  own  skirmishers  were  slowly  falling 
back  to  their  line  of  support.  The  guns  of  the  Waterhouse 
battery,  fiercely  augmenting  their  clamorous  barking,  suddenly 
fell  silent.  The  gunners  swabbed  out  the  hot  cannon  and  then 
stood  at  their  stations. 

"  Why  do  they  stop  firing?  "     I  asked. 

"They  are  letting  the  guns  cool,"  said  a  corporal. 

"They  are  going  to  get  out  of  this,"  said  Worthington; 
"those  fellows  are  coming  up  the  hill." 

I  was  looking  at  a  young  artilleryman.  He  was  half  seated 
on  the  hub  of  one  of  the  Waterhouse  guns,  resting  his  face 
against  the  arm  with  which  he  cushioned  the  rim  of  the  wheel. 
He  was  a  boy  about  my  own  age,  not  over  nineteen.  He  was 
tired,  for  serving  the  guns  in  hot  action  is  fast  work  and  hard 
work.  His  lips  were  parted  with  his  quick  breathing.  He 
lifted  his  face  and  smiledfat  some  remark  made  to  him  by  one 
of  the  gunners.  His  face  was  handsome  in  its  animation — a 
beautiful  boy. 

I  heard  a  sound  such  as  I  had  never  heard  before,  but  I 
shuddered  as  I  heard  it — dull  and  cruel  and  deadly.  A  hideous 
sound,  fearsome  and  hateful. 

The  young  artilleryman  leaped  to  his  feet,  his  face  lifted 

45 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

toward  the  gray  sky,  his  hands  tossed  above  his  head.  He 
reeled,  and  as  a  comrade  sprang  to  catch  him  in  his  arms  the 
boy  cried,  his  voice  shrilling  down  the  line: 

"Murder,  boys!    Murder!    Oh,  murder!" 

He  clasped  his  hands  over  a  splotch  of  crimson  that  was 
widening  on  the  blue  breast  of  his  red-trimmed  jacket  and  fell 
into  the  strong  arms  of  the  comrades  who  carried  him  to  the 
rear.  Him,  or — It. 

The  rain  began  again  and  the  warm  drops  fell  like  tears 
upon  his  white  face,  as  though  angels  were  weeping  above  him. 
I  watched  the  men  carry  him  away  to  where  the  yellow  flag 
marked  the  mercy  station  of  the  field  hospital. 

The  bugles  called  sweetly  and  imperiously,  the  colonel's 
voice  rang  out  stern,  peremptory,  inspiring,  the  line  sprang  to 
its  feet,  and  with  mighty  shouting  rushed  forward  like  unleashed 
dogs  of  war.  Thundering  guns,  rattling  musketry,  cheering 
and  more  cheering,  a  triumphant  charge,  a  wild  pursuit,  a  mad 
dash — we  were  over  the  works  and  into  the  city.  That  night 
my  regiment  bivouacked  in  the  pleasant  grounds  of  the  beau 
tiful  capitol  of  Mississippi.  My  first  battle,  and  it  was  a  victory 
— a  victory — a  brilliant  victory!  And  I  had  a  soldier's  part  in 
it.  How  proud  I  was!  I  could  not  sleep.  I  mentally  indited 
a  dozen  letters  home.  And  again  I  whispered  a  prayer,  and 
looked  up  my  good-night  at  the  stars. 

Calm,  silent,  tranquil.  Undimmed  by  the  smoke  of  the 
guns.  Unstained  by  the  blood  that  had  smeared  the  meadow 
daisies.  Unshaken  by  all  the  tumult  of  charging  battalions. 
Sweet  and  pure,  the  glittering  constellations  looked  down  upon 
the  trampled  field  and  the  dismantled  forts.  Looked  down 
upon  the  little  world  in  which  men  lived  and  slept;  loved  and 
hated;  fought  and  died.  The  quiet,  blessed,  peaceful  starlight. 

Far  away,  yet  thrilling  as  a  night  alarm,  came  dropping 
down  through  the  starlight  the  cry  that  went  up  from  the  sodden 
earth  ages  and  ages  ago: 

"Murder!    Oh,  murder!" 

My  thoughts  went  northward,  because  I  could  not  sleep, 
to  the  little  home  in  Peoria  where  mother  and  sisters  waited 
for  me.  Slowly,  although  I  tried  to  keep  them  away,  my 
thoughts  came  back  to  the  battery  on  the  brow  of  the  wooded 
hill  where  the  purple  violets  smiled  through  the  strangling 

46 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

smoke  of  the  guns.  With  a  troubled  mind  I  thought  of  other 
mothers  and  sisters  who  waited  in  northern  and  southern 
homes.  I  laid  my  arm  across  my  face  to  shut  out  something 
that  dimmed  the  starlight  and  marred  the  glory  of  victory 
with  the  stain  that  marked  the  altar  of  prayer  and  sacrifice 
when  the  world  was  young  and  fair.  I  would  not  allow  myself 
to  think  of  hideous  and  hateful  things.  I  would  think  of  love 
and  home,  and  the  whistle  of  the  robin,  the  song  of  the  meadow- 
lark,  and  the  mother  voice,  soft  and  sweet  and  dovelike,  cooing 
the  old  love  songs. 

Still,  even  as  I  slept  and  dreamed  of  a  victory  won  and  of 
other  fields  of  glory  and  triumph  to  come,  down  through  the 
starlight  came  the  echo  of  that  fainting  cry  under  the  wheels 
of  the  guns: 

"  Murder !    Murder,  boys !    Oh,  murder ! ' ' 

He  had  his  part,  too,  in  the  assault  before  Vicksburg, 
and  concerning  this  says: 

I  was  only  in  one  little  corner  of  it,  very  small,  exceeding 
hot,  and  extremely  dangerous,  so  that  my  personal  observa 
tions,  being  much  concerned  with  myself,  were  limited  by  dis 
tracting  circumstances. 

Anyhow,  without  much  regard  to  my  convenience,  the 
assault  was  ordered  at  ten  o'clock  that  beautiful  May  morning. 
Ten  hours  of  the  most  terrific  cannonading  I  ever  heard;  the 
assailing  army  storming  the  fortified  position  of  an  enemy 
almost  its  equal  in  numerical  strength,  when  one  man  in  a 
fort  is  considered  the  equivalent  of  seven  assailants;  Sherman, 
McClellan,  McPherson,  Mower,  Quinby,  Tuttle,  Steele,  A.  J. 
Smith  and  Carr,  wardogs  of  mettle  and  valor. 

Hour  after  hour  they  charged  the  great  bastioned  forts, 
each  time  to  be  swept  back  with  ranks  thinned  and  scattered, 
but  ready  for  another  grapple.  At  half -past  three  in  the  after 
noon  the  brigade  to  which  my  regiment  belonged — Mower's, 
then  the  third  brigade  of  Tuttle's  division,  Fifteenth  Army  Corps 
(Sherman's) — was  ordered,  as  a  forlorn  hope,  to  storm  the 
bastion  at  Walnut  Hills.  We  charged  in  column,  and  as  we 
swept  up  the  hill  from  the  shelter  of  the  ravine,  we  passed  a 
little  group  of  great  generals  watching  us  "go  in" — Sherman, 

47 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Tuttle  and  Mower,  our  corps,  division  and  brigade  commanders. 
Who  wouldn't  fight  before  such  a  "cloud  of  witnesses"? 

As  we  passed,  Mower  detached  himself  from  the  group  and 
placed  himself  at  the  head  of  his  own  men.  When  we  reached 
the  crest  of  the  hill  we  were  met  by  a  withering  fire  from  the 
fort  and  stockade  and  breastworks  that  struck  us  in  our  faces 
like  a  whirlwind  of  flame  and  iron.  We  fought  through  it, 
close  to  the  fort,  when  we  were  finally  repelled.  Then  there 
happened  to  me  that  to  which  the  rest  of  the  day's  fighting 
seemed  only  preliminary. 

When  we  fell  back  slowly,  I  saw  our  second  lieutenant, 
Christopher  Gilbert,  stagger  and  fall  crookedly  forward.  I 
thought  he  was  killed,  but  as  I  looked  for  a  moment  I  noted 
him  trying  to  rise.  It  wouldn't  do  to  leave  him  there — that 
was  certain  death.  Robley  D.  Stout,  one  of  my  company, 
and  I  ran  to  him,  and  lifting  him  to  his  feet,  drew  his  arm  over 
our  shoulders,  and  brought  him  back  to  the  retreating  line. 
He  was  shot  through  the  leg  with  a  grape-shot  and  unable  to 
help  himself  more  than  to  cling  to  our  shoulders.  I  wished  at 
the  time  that  he  were  as  big  as  a  bale  of  hay,  for  his  body  made 
a  sort  of  shield  for  the  two  youths  who  were  carrying  him  away 
from  the  missiles  that  still  pursued  him  spitefully  as  though 
they  were  bent  on  finishing  the  work  they  had  begun. 

He  recovered  after  a  tedious  time  in  hospital,  and  when 
he  could  return  to  duty  the  additional  bar  he  won  at  Vicksburg 
graced  his  shoulder-strap,  and  he  was  our  first  lieutenant. 

Years  afterwards,  referring  to  this  same  second 
lieutenant,  he  says: 

There  were  two  Gilberts  in  the  company,  Chris  and  Charley, 
brothers,  good  boys  and  good  soldiers.  I  met  my  lieutenant  a 
few  times  after  the  war.  Then  our  lives  drifted  apart.  I 
became  a  minister  and  was  pastor  of  Temple  Baptist  Church 
in  Los  Angeles,  California. 

One  day  my  lieutenant  came  before  me,  not  to  give  orders, 
but  to  take  them.  He  was  a  prisoner,  and  his  fair  captor  stood 
beside  him.  She  had  done  what  Pemberton's  sharpshooters 
in  Vicksburg  could  not  do.  Love  had  won  my  lieutenant.  I 
ordered  him  to  accept  the  terms  of  the  bride,  to  "love  her, 
comfort  her,  cherish  her,  honor  and  keep  her,  till  death  them 
did  part."  And  he  obeyed  willingly. 

48 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

After  the  service  he  said : 

"  Bob,  do  you  recall  the  hot  afternoon  on  the  slopes  before 
the  bastion  at  Vicksburg?" 

"  I  was  just  thinking  of  it,  Lieutenant.  And  I  was  wonder 
ing  if  now  you  might  ever  blame  me  for  helping  to  drag  you  out 
of  the  range  of  Pemberton's  sharpshooters?" 

"Indeed,  no,"  he  said,  "I  never  will.  I've  often  wondered 
why  the  dear  Lord  sent  you  back  after  me.  But  this  is  the 
'Why'." 

Such  experiences  as  these  burned  into  his  soul  an 
appreciation  and  admiration  for  the  flag,  which  inspired 
his  pen  to  flame  forth  these  words: 

Every  time  Honor  writes  a  new  battle  name  in  gold  on 
the  flag  she  blots  the  names  of  a  few  men  off  the  regimental 
roll,  in  blood.  That's  the  price  of  the  battle  inscriptions. 
That's  what  makes  them  so  precious.  The  inscriptions  are 
laid  on  in  gold,  underlaid  and  made  indelible  with  blood.  No 
wonder  the  Flag  seems  to  be  a  thing  of  life.  Every  fold  in  it 
is  a-quiver  with  human  hearts.  When  it  is  fluttering  in  the 
wind,  it  is  throbbing.  When  it  is  unfurled  in  the  rain,  it  weeps. 
The  Flag — that  is  the  Heart  of  the  Regiment. 

And  that  it  may  never  grow  weak  with  the  years  and  service, 
in  every  battle  new  hearts,  young  and  brave  and  loyal,  are 
transfused  into  the  quivering  veins  of  red  and  white;  into  the 
stars  of  gold  on  the  field  of  blue.  It  is  the  living  history  of  the 
regiment.  It  is  the  roster  of  the  heroic  dead,  woven  into  the 
story  of  its  many  conflicts.  It  is  memory  and  inspiration.  It 
is  the  visible  soul  of  a  cause.  So  the  men  of  the  Union  looked 
upon  "Old  Glory".  So  the  men  of  the  Confederacy  gazed 
upon  the  "Stars  and  Bars"  in  the  days  of  its  hopes,  when  it 
flamed  above  fighting  legions  of  the  South. 

The  47th,  his  regiment,  was  one  of  four,  which,  with 
the  2d  Iowa  Battery,  composed  what  is  known  as  the 
"Eagle  Brigade",  from  the  fact  that  the  8th  Wisconsin 
Regiment  of  that  Brigade  carried  a  young  American 
eagle  all  through  the  war.  All  of  the  boys  were  proud 
4  49 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

of  that  eagle.    While  waiting  for  his  discharge  at 
Selma  in  1865,  he  wrote  his  brother  John: 

Obliged  to  you  for  the  picture  of  the  eagle.  I  tried  to  get 
one  to  send  to  you  at  La  Grange,  but  couldn't.  His  head  wasn't 
near  as  white  then  as  now.  You  needn't  give  your  promised 
history  of  the  eagle.  The  8th  Wis.  has  been  in  our  brigade 
nearly  three  years,  and  the  Johnnies  knew  us  as  the  Eagle 
Brigade.  I  have  fed  "old  Abe"  with  chicken  and  once  got 
well  bit  for  teasing  him.  I  saw  him  at  Jackson ;  he  was  always 
carried  on  that  shield  by  a  sergeant  right  with  the  colors,  and 
he  is  fastened  by  a  piece  of  long  twine.  At  Vicksburg,  too, 
old  Abe  charged  with  us;  mingling  his  shrill  defiant  scream, 
with  the  cheers  of  the  men  who  thought  more  of  him  next  to 
"old  Joe"  than  anything  else  in  the  Brigade. 

Old  Abe  knew  our  partiality  for  him  and  many  a  time  have 
we  toiled  and  sweated  and  raced  after  a  rabbit  merely  to  give 
it  to  old  Abe  and  see  him  kill  it  and  pick  out  the  good  parts, 
for  he  was  a  dainty  old  feeder;  we  shared  so  many  chickens 
and  other  good  contraband  grub  with  him,  that  if  you  didn't 
happen  to  give  him  just  what  suited  his  palate  there  was  a  row. 
He  had  a  few  feathers  carried  away  by  a  minie  ball  at  Corinth, 
and  has  been  in  every  fight  with  his  regimerit.  His  head  was 
not  white  when  he  went  home  on  veteran  furlough,  but  it  was 
when  he  came  back  on  a  visit  to  us  at  Memphis,  and  he  looked 
very  much  like  the  photograph. 

And  fifty  years  after  the  war  he  wrote: 

He  was  an  eaglet  when  the  war  broke  out,  and  enlisted 
young,  like  many  of  the  boys  who  loved  him  and  fought  beside 
him.  He  was  captured  on  the  Flambeau  River,  Wisconsin,  in 
1861,  by  a  Chippewa  Indian,  "Chief  Sky",  who  sold  him  for  a 
bushel  of  corn.  Subsequently  a  Mr.  Mills  paid  five  dollars 
for  him,  and  presented  him  to  "C"  Company  of  the  Eighth 
Wisconsin  Regiment,  known  as  the  "Eau  Claire  Eagles".  The 
soldiers  at  once  adopted  him  as  one  of  their  standards,  made 
him  a  member  of  the  color-guard,  named  him  in  honor  of  the 
greatest  of  the  presidents,  and  he  never  once  disgraced  his  name. 
Through  thirty-six  battles  he  screamed  his  "Ha,  ha"  among 
the  trumpets,  smelling  the  battle  afar  off,  fluttering  among  the 

50 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

thunder  of  the  captains  and  the  shouting.  Never  once  did  he 
flinch.  He  was  wounded  in  the  assault  on  Vicksburg  and  in 
the  battle  of  Corinth. 

Dear  "Old  Abe"!  I  think  of  him  every  time  I  look  at  a 
quarter.  His  portrait  makes  it  big  as  a  dollar.  I  often  wish 
all  my  creditors  had  belonged  to  the  "Eagle  Brigade".  You 
see,  patriotism  not  only  makes  a  man's  country  seem  greater; 
it  makes  her  coinage  appear  more  precious. 

In  describing  the  attitude  of  some  of  the  unrecon 
structed  Rebel  soldiers,  he  wrote  from  Selma  on  May 
26,  1865: 

One  of  them  so  far  relied  on  my  magnanimity  as  to  inform 
me  that  in  addition  to  being  a  "nigger"  worshipper,  aboli- 

tioner,  etc.,  I  was  a  d Lincolnite  and  that  there  would  be 

more  of  us  go  the  same  way  our  President  (the  "baboon"  he 
called  him)  had.  He  hasn't  relied  any  on  my  magnanimity 
since,  nor  on  any  other  Yankee's,  I  don't  think,  and  won't  till 
he  gets  out  of  the  hospital,  for  I  lifted  a  piece  of  board  off  his 
head  several  times,  and  he  is  now  somewhat  indisposed,  but 
very  quiet  and  civil. 

Courageously  enough  he  did  his  duty  through  the 
three  years  of  his  enlistment,  and  yet  he  hated  war  and 
never  had  anything  but  condemnation  for  the  spirit 
that  made  war  necessary.  He  attacked  it  always  with 
all  the  power  of  his  eloquence  as  the — 

destruction  of  innocent  and  useful  things,  the  destruction  of 
everything.  When  we  tore  up  a  railway,  it  wasn't  enough  to 
demolish  it  so  that  trains  could  not  go  over  it.  We  burned  the 
ties.  But  we  made  them  destroyers  of  other  things  in  their 
own  fiery  death. 

We  builded  orderly  heaps  of  them — because  war  does  not 
destroy  like  a  blind  storm  that  does  not  know  how  to  destroy 
property — war  destroys  scientifically.  On  top  of  the  ties  we 
laid  the  iron  rails.  The  heat  of  the  fire  furnaced  the  rails  to 
red-whiteness,  and  their  own  weight  compelled  them  to  suicide. 
They  bent  down  in  strangling  humiliation.  Or,  if  there  was 

51 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

time,  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  longer,  men  seized  the  ends  of 
the  rails  with  improvised  tongs  of  twisted  saplings,  ran  the  red 
center  of  the  rail  against  a  tree,  and  bent  it  around  the  oak  in 
a  glowing  knot.  The  enemy  could  make  a  new  rail  in  less  time 
than  he  could  straighten  out  that  entanglement. 

He  no  doubt  obeyed  orders  and  "aimed  to  kill" — 
but  of  this  he  seldom  spoke  or  wrote.  Once  in  a  letter 
he  wrote: 

I  have  served  eighteen  months  as  an  infantryman  and  a 
similar  period  of  cavalry  arms,  participating  in  twenty-two 
battles  and  skirmishes,  never  having  been  shot  and  devoutly 
hoping  that  I  killed  and  wounded  the  same  number  of  the  enemy 
as  they  have  of  me.  Anyway,  I  tried  to  put  down  the  rebellion 
with  a  musket  larger  than  myself. 

This  truant  verse  written  by  him  is  characteristic: 

Sweet  little  Major,  he  mounts  my  knee, 
And  the  tender  blue  eyes  look  at  me. 
"  Tell  me,  Popsie,  just  once  more, 
What  did  you  do  when  you  went  to  war?" 

And  then  I  tell  of  the  autumn  day 
When  the  Forty-seventh  marched  away; 
How  Cromwell  died  at  Jackson  town, 
And  Miles  on  Corinth  field  went  down. 

"  But  how  many  rebels,  tell  me  true, 

Did  you  kill  then,  and  the  whole  war  through?" 

And  I  tell  him  then,  with  eager  zest, 

How  Jo  Reed  blew  up  a  limber  chest. 

But  the  Major  sticks  to  his  question  still, 
"How  many  rebels  did  you  kill?" 
So  I  tell  him  how,  near  the  set  of  sun, 
The  charge  was  made  and  the  battle  won. 

And  how,  the  day  McClure  was  shot 
When  Vicksburg's  fight  was  fierce  and  hot, 
Brave  Sam  Law  took  C  company  in 
Through  flame  and  smoke  and  the  batteries'  din; 
52 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

How  over  our  heads  the  battle  broke, 
With  screaming  shell  and  saber  stroke, 
And  he  wanted  to  know,  the  little  elf, 
"But  how  many  men  did  you  kill  yourself?" 

"Say,  tell  me,  Popsie,  say  you  will — 

How  many  rebels  did  you  kill?" 

So  I  told  him  the  truth,  as  near  as  might  be — 

As  many  of  them  as  they  did  of  me. 

The  editor  of  Bugle  Echoes,  in  a  story  of  Illinois 
47th,  referring  to  Mr.  Burdette,  says: 

In  the  excitement  of  battle  man's  inner  nature  is  apt  to 
show  forth.  A  preacher  may  become  profane  and  a  pirate 
pray.  Look  into  the  mild,  laughing  brown  eyes  of  America's 
sweetest  humorist,  read  the  tender  sonnets  from  his  pen  or 
listen  to  the  loving  pleadings  from  his  pulpit  and  imagine,  if 
you  can,  Robert  J.  Burdette  a  tiger  in  action. 

Yet  so  he  was,  every  crack  of  his  rifle  a  joy,  his  face  illu 
mined;  battle  was  an  inspiration  and  his  wit  never  so  nimble  as 
then.  One  forgets  what  is  said  in  such  an  hour.  Action  leaves 
only  impressions;  one  remembers  fierce  imprecations,  but  not 
the  words;  he  is  conscious  of  shouts,  but  knows  not  wherefore; 
he  laughs  at  something  said,  but  he  forgets  what  it  was.  The 
boys  of  Company  B  laughed  often  with  gentle  Robert,  but 
laughed  loudest  upon  the  battle  line." 

He  enlisted  as  a  private,  and  as  a  private  he  was 
discharged  at  the  close  of  the  war.  At  banquet  tables 
in  many  after  years  he  sat  with  distinguished  persons 
of  many  ranks,  titles,  and  degrees,  and  to  the  toast 
masters,  after  calling  upon  Generals,  Colonels,  and 
Ambassadors  to  respond,  there  was  always  a  sly  humor 
in  their  calling  upon  "Private  Bob  Burdette".  But  as 
a  private  he  groomed  his  horse  so  perfectly,  attended 
to  camp  duties  so  efficiently,  performed  the  details  of 
orderly  so  courageously,  he  won  the  commendation 
and  admiration  of  ranking  officers. 

53 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

An  incident  he  often  related  was  his  first  personal 
meeting  with  Grant.  A  box  of  good  things  from  home, 
the  only  one,  he  says,  that  ever  reached  him  during  the 
War,  was  the  means  of  introducing  him  to  his  Com 
manding  General.  His  regiment  was  in  camp  at  Young's 
Point,  La.,  employed  in  digging  the  famous  canal 
designed  to  carry  the  fleet  around  Vicksburg  in  that 
campaign.  A  man  of  his  company  came  up  from  the 
river  one  day  and  said,  "There  is  a  box  addressed  to 
you  down  on  one  of  the  steamboats." 

With  a  pass  to  the  river  and  an  order  for  his  box,  he 
was  on  his  way  in  an  instant,  presenting  his  order  to  a 
civilian  commissioner  on  the  boat,  only  to  be  in 
formed  that  all  the  stores  on  the  transport,  private  and 
public,  were  the  property  of  the  Sanitary  Commission, 
having  been  seized  for  use  in  the  hospitals.  Having 
failed  in  various  appeals,  the  boy  suggested  there 
might  be  letters  in  the  box — might  he  not  open  it  and 
get  them?  His  account  of  what  followed  is  char 
acteristic: 

The  big  Irish  mate  followed  me  to  the  gangplank. 

"  Ye'll  get  yer  box,  me  lad,"  he  said,  "if  ye  do  as  I  tell  ye. 
Go  up  on  the  cabin  deck  an'  ask  the  Ould  Man." 

Who  was  the  Old  Man? 

"  Ould  Grant,  no  less.  He  kem  aboard  about  an  hour  ago, 
an'  he's  up  there  smokin'  this  minute  whin  I  kem  down.  Ill 
pass  ye  the  gyard  and  ye'll  go  on  up.  Come  an  wid  ye." 

He  led  me  up  to  the  cabin  deck.  There  sat  the  silent, 
brown-bearded  man  whose  features  every  soldier  knew  and 
whose  greatness  every  western  soldier  held  in  unquestioning 
reverence.  I  saluted,  the  mate  explained  my  errand,  and  the 
general  looked  out  over  the  turbid  Mississippi  and  smoked 
silently  while  I  pleaded  my  little  case.  Then  he  asked  for  my 
order.  My  heart  beat  high  with  the  hope  that  he  would  write 
a  military  O.K.  across  it  with  magic  initials.  To  my  amaze 
ment,  he  read  it  and  rose  to  his  feet.  "Come  with  me,"  he 
54 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

said.  And  a  bewildered  private  soldier,  escorted  by  the  General 
Commanding  the  Military  Division  of  the  Mississippi,  followed 
him  to  the  civilian  commissioner. 

I  pointed  out  my  property,  and  General  Grant  handed  the 
order  to  the  civilian.  "  Give  the  boy  his  box,"  he  said  simply. 
The  commissioner  bowed  and  I  saluted.  I  wish  I  could  imitate 
that  salute  now.  It  was  a  combination  of  reverence,  admira 
tion,  kotow  and  renewed  assurance  of  a  distinguished  considera 
tion.  Except  possibly  in  China,  the  general  never  again 
received  such  an  all-comprehensive  obeisance. 

The  cigar  between  the  fingers  swept  a  half-circle  of  smoke 
as  the  Commander,  with  military  punctiliousness,  returned  the 
private's  salute,  and  with  a  half-smile  playing  under  the  brown 
mustache,  created,  I  fear,  by  that  all-comprehensive,  unpre 
cedented  salute  of  mine,  he  returned  to  his  chair  on  the  cabin 
deck,  while  the  big  mate  patted  my  back  all  the  way  to  the 
gangplank. 

Years  later  he  wrote: 

I  am  not  the  original  Grant  man.  I  was  always  an  honest 
admirer  of  Grant's,  for  I  felt  and  learned  in  the  long  Jackson 
and  Vicksburg  campaigns  the  intense  devotion  to  him  which 
inspired  every  man  who  ever  served  under  him,  and  the  feeling 
never  left  me,  never  grew  weak  or  faint.  But  I  did  not  think 
it  wise  or  right  that  he  should  be  called  back  to  Washington 
for  a  third  term,  and  I  was  not  a  Grant  man  in  that  sense,  last 
spring.  I  was  a  Elaine  man. 

Now  look  back  five  or  six  weeks,  and  see  what  one  man 
towers  above  all  others  in  this  fight.  Never  seemed  the  man 
Grant  so  great  before.  His  simple,  unquestioning,  unselfish 
patriotism,  the  grandeur  with  which  he  rose  superior  to  every 
personal  question,  and  unified  the  sentiment  and  closed  up  the 
ranks  of  the  Republican  party  by  the  magnetism  of  his  presence, 
the  straightforward  common  sense  of  his  short  speeches,  and 
the  splendid  patriotism  of  his  example,  commanded  and  won 
the  admiration,  the  confidence,  the  good  will  of  the  Republican 
party  to  a  more  universal  degree  than  he  ever  before  possessed  it. 

The  first  soldier  of  our  time,  the  peerless  captain  who  never 
knew  defeat,  yet  the  citizen  Grant  is  greater  even  than  the 
general,  and  the  people  see  it  and  feel  it  to  be  so.  There  is  in 

55 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

all  our  land,  I  think,  no  man  who  stands  so  high,  and  withal  so 
modest,  so  unambitious  for  himself — I  do  not  believe  he  is 
touched  with  any  personal  ambition — so  unselfishly  devoted  to 
his  country. 

And  later  yet  he  wrote: 

Often  as  I  journey  to  New  York,  I  have  time  to  go  out  to 
the  stately  mausoleum  on  Riverside  Drive,  bearing  over  its 
portals  the  message  of  the  great  captain  to  the  warring  world — 
"  Let  us  have  peace."  I  stand  uncovered  as  I  look  at  the  sar 
cophagus  that  holds  his  dust.  I  think  of  his  greatness  and  of 
his  simplicity.  The  courage  of  the  soldier,  the  rare  abilities 
of  the  general,  and  the  gentleness  of  the  man.  I  see  him  going 
with  a  private  soldier,  and  hear  him,  in  the  voice  that  could 
have  moved  armies  of  half  a  million  men,  issuing  the  quiet 
command  that  gave  to  a  boy  a  little  box  of  things  from  mother. 
And  that  picture  harmonizes  perfectly  with  all  the  others. 

The  tomb  of  Grant  will  always  be  a  monument  to  the 
preaching  of  peace  by  the  silent  soldier — the  greatest  of  Ameri 
can  soldiers,  who  never  failed  in  accomplishing  the  thing  he 
set  out  to  do — "who  never  overrated  himself  in  his  dispatches, 
who  never  underrated  himself  in  battle."  Grant,  whose 
gentleness  was  equal  to  his  courage,  and  whose  magnanimity 
equaled  his  justice.  The  strongest,  bravest,  greatest,  sweetest 
soldier! 

With  his  old  colonel,  J.  D.  McClure  of  Peoria,  he 
maintained  an  ardent  friendship  and  occasional  cor 
respondence  until  the  death  of  Colonel  McClure.  Of 
him  he  wrote: 

Of  all  the  colonels  under  whom  I  served,  Colonel  John  D. 
McClure  was  my  ideal.  A  man  with  a  strong  figure  and  a 
strong  face,  a  man's  voice,  deep  and  commanding;  clear, 
steady  eyes. 

For  each  and  all  who  companioned  him  during  those 
crucial  years  he  held  a  reverent  memory: 

You  can't  define  "friend"  in  dictionary  terms  [he  wrote]. 
And  "comrade" — that  isn't  a  name;  that's  a  man.  Tried  by 

56 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

the  acid  test  like  pure  gold,  tried  by  the  fire  test;  by  the  wet 
fleece  and  the  dry;  by  long  marches;  by  hunger  and  thirst; 
by  the  long  line  of  gleaming  bayonets;  by  the  thunder  of  the 
big  guns;  by  the  fierce  reaping  hooks  of  flame;  by  pain  and 
wounds;  by  the  fierce  grip  of  battle;  danger  and  death.  That's 
what  a  Grand  Army  man  or  a  Confederate  Veteran  means 
when  he  says  "comrade".  How  are  you  going  to  put  all  that 
into  a  dictionary  definition? 

In  later  life,  when  referring  to  one  old  comrade,  he 
wrote: 

Had  we,  then,  forgotten  him  so  quickly?  Forget  the 
comrade  who  had  shared  our  duties,  our  privations,  our  hard 
ships,  our  perils?  It  was  nearly  fifty  years  ago  that  we  fired 
our  "farewell  shot"  over  that  grave,  and  a  little  ache  creeps 
into  my  heart  with  the  thought  of  him  today. 

It  isn't  a  good  thing  for  a  soldier,  who  every  day  must  face 
death  in  some  measure,  to  be  depressed  in  spirit.  It  unfits 
him  for  his  duties.  The  trilling  fifes  and  the  merry  drums  are 
not  to  make  us  forget.  They  are  to  remind  us  that  we  must 
be  ready  for  every  duty,  cheery  and  brave  and  faithful.  The 
music  of  the  camp  never  dims  the  memory  of  the  comrade  who 
has  been  called  to  higher  duty.  It's  the  way  of  the  camp, 
and  of  the  busy  world,  and  it's  a  good  way.  I  do  not  believe 
in  wearing  mourning  for  the  dead,  yet  no  man  loves  his  friends 
more  dearly  than  I.  I  would  not  say  of  my  loved  ones,  when 
they  pass  on  to  the  perfect  life,  "  They  make  me  gloomy  every 
time  I  think  of  them.  As  a  token  of  my  feelings  toward  them, 
I  darken  my  sunshine  with  these  sable  garments  of  the  night." 

The  drums  and  the  bugles  were  as  companions  to  the 
spirited  boy,  who  never  ceased  to  be  moved  by  martial 
music: 

One  of  our  drummers — the  youngest — was  a  tonic  for  a 
faint  heart.  Johnny  Grove;  he  could  drum  to  beat  a  hail 
storm  on  a  tin  roof,  and  he  had  a  heart  full  of  merriment  and 
a  tongue  as  ready  as  a  firecracker.  Death  came  very  near  to 
him  many  times,  but  he  always  laughed  when  he  heard  the  boy, 

57 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  passed  on,  and  Johnny  still  lived  with  a  heart  as  mellow 
as  then  it  was  light,  until  a  few  years  ago. 

The  drums  of  the  Forty-seventh — they  time  a  quicker  throb 
to  my  old  heart  now,  when  I  think  I  hear  them  again,  on  a 
rough  road  and  a  steep  grade.  The  drummers  are  old  men; 
old  as  myself.  And  again  they  are  playing  the  regiment  into 
camp.  The  fifes  blow  softly  as  flutes.  The  roll  of  the  muffled 
drums,  tender  as  the  patter  of  rain  on  autumn  leaves,  times  the 
slow  steps  of  old  soldiers  with  the  Dead  March  to  which  we 
listened  so  oft  when  life  was  in  the  springtime: 

There's  nae  sorrow  there,  John; 
There's  neither  cauld  nor  care,  John, 
The  day  is  aye  fair 
F  the  Land  o'  the  Leal. 

But  the  bugles!  Their  voices  never  change.  I  have  heard 
them  in  the  midst  of  the  storm  of  war  on  a  blood-drenched 
battle-field  come  ringing  down  the  broken  lines,  breaking 
through  the  pungent  powder  smoke,  their  voices  of  command 
clear  as  the  song  of  a  meadow  lark  calling  through  a  bank  of 
fog  or  a  cloud  of  drifting  mist.  Strangely  sweet,  the  bugle 
call  in  the  midst  of  the  battle  clamor — the  roar  of  the  guns, 
the  fierce  rattle  of  musketry,  "the  thunder  of  the  captains  and 
the  shouting."  Heart-breakingly  sweet.  The  soldier  starts 
sometimes  as  though  he  heard  the  echo  of  his  mother's  voice 
calling  him  out  of  the  passion  of  carnage,  calling  him  back  to 
her  side — back  to  her  arms,  back  to  her  tender  caresses,  sooth 
ing  the  storm  of  battle  rage  in  his  young  heart — calling  him  to 
home  and  peace,  with  the  old  love  songs,  the  cooing  dove  and 
the  whistling  robin. 

Then  the  bugle,  sweetly  as  ever,  calls  yet  more  insistently, 
and  a  great  thundering  shout  from  the  colonel  drowns  the 
mother- voice — "Fix  bayonets!  Forward — guide  center — 
double  quick — follow  me,  boys!"  And  the  wave  of  the  charge 
carries  the  line  forward  on  a  billow  of  cheers  in  a  tempest  of 
fighting  madness.  And  still  the  bugle  calls,  just  as  sweetly 
and  just  as  insistently  as  though  a  beautiful  queen  were  urging 
her  soldiers  on  to  glory  and  victory — Deborah  singing  "The 
Charge." 

58 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

How  can  anything  so  beautiful  set  a  man  on  to  fight  and 
kill?  Well,  it  does.  A  soldier  in  a  fatigue  uniform  looks  like 
a  dude  alongside  of  a  civilian  in  his  fishing  clothes.  There  is 
good  music  in  the  beer  halls;  better,  sometimes,  than  you  can 
hear  in  your  home  church.  A  regiment  marching  down  street 
behind  its  military  band  Sunday  morning  is  far  more  alluring 
in  appearance  than  the  throngs  of  worshippers  straggling  along 
to  worship.  Why  is  a  battleship  more  attractive  than  a 
ferryboat? 

Mr.  Burdette  loved  the  people  of  the  South  and 
they  loved  him.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  His 
forebears  dwelt  there.  There  his  grandfather  lived 
with  his  slaves,  which  he  had  freed,  however,  before  the 
war.  There  his  aunts  and  uncles  and  cousins  live 
today.  Writing  of  the  Southland  as  he  first  saw  it, 
he  said: 

Such  a  beautiful  country  we  were  marching  through,  that 
summer  day.  A  park  for  loveliness;  a  granary  for  fertility. 
Low  hills  whose  wooded  crests  smiled  on  the  cornfields  that 
ran  down  to  the  emerald  meadows.  A  creek  meandering  across 
the  plantations,  loitering  in  its  broad  and  shallow  bends  to 
photograph  the  white  clouds  posing  against  the  soft  turquoist 
skies;  stately  old  plantation  homes  with  their  colonial  archi 
tecture;  the  little  villages  of  negro  quarters  in  the  rear;  pleas 
ant  orchards  and  fragrant  gardens. 

How  beautiful  they  were,  those  sweet  old  southern  homes! 
And  dear  and  fair  some  of  them  still  stand,  here  and  there  in 
the  new  South,  amid  the  rush  and  clatter  of  modernity  and 
progress,  of  steam  and  electricity,  gasoline,  automobiles  and 
airships,  tourists  and  promoters  and  prospectors,  iron  furnaces 
and  coal  mines.  Not  as  scolding  protests  against  progress, 
development  and  prosperity — they  are  too  gentle  for  that. 
They  stand  rather  as  beautiful  memories  of  all  that  was  sweetest 
and  fairest  and  best  in  the  Old  South.  What  colonial  grace 
in  their  white-columned  verandas.  What  stateliness  in  the 
heavy  cornice;  what  welcome  of  hospitality  in  the  spacious 
doors  with  their  old-time  "side-lights,"  and  in  the  sunny 
smiles  of  the  many-windowed  front.  The  shadow  of  pathos 

59 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

rests  upon  them  now,  tenderly  as  the  sun-kissed  haze  of  Indian 
summer  days.  They  temper  our  nervous  desire  for  "  newness  " ; 
they  correct  our  taste  for  architectural  frenzies  of  many-gabled 
deformities  and  varicolored  creosote  "complexions".  They 
are  of  the  old  order,  which,  like  the  Old  Guard,  dies,  but  never 
surrenders  to  modern  changes.  They  stood  here  before  the 
war.  They  have  been  deluged  with  woe.  They  have  been 
baptized  in  sorrows,  the  bitterness  and  depth  of  which  our 
northern  homes  never  knew — can  not  know — please  God,  never 
will  know. 

And  some  of  their  anguish  has  been  the  common  sorrows 
of  all  homes  in  war  times — the  heartache  of  bereaved  mother 
hood;  the  agony  of  widowhood;  the  loneliness  of  the  orphaned. 
The  loving  Father  of  us  all  has  made  the  sorrow  that  is  common 
a  healing  balm  that  makes  holy  and  tender  the  bitterness  of 
the  cruel  past.  The  kisses  that  rained  on  the  faces  of  the  dead 
have  blossomed  into  the  perfumed  lilies  of  consolation  for  the 
living. 

He  never  failed  to  express  his  belief  in  the  entire 
justice  of  the  cause  for  which  the  war  was  fought  by 
the  North.  At  a  banquet  in  Los  Angeles,  almost 
fifty  years  after  the  close  of  the  war,  he  took  quick  and 
eloquent  issue  with  one  of  the  speakers  of  the  occasion 
who  had  finished  an  unusual  eulogy  of  Robert  E.  Lee.  It 
was  never  his  disposition,  even  for  courtesy's  sake,  to 
sit  by  when  he  felt  that  eloquence  was  far  out-stripping 
truth.  Springing  to  his  feet  at  the  close  of  the  eulogy, 
and  with  an  intense  earnestness  and  rapidity  of 
speech,  he  said: 

I  do  not  believe  that  Robert  E.  Lee  was  "  one  greater  than 
Washington."  And  I  do  not  think  that  the  supreme  agony  of 
the  Son  of  God  in  the  infinite  anguish  of  the  trial  of  Gethsemane 
should  be  mentioned  in  the  same  sentence,  much  less  compared 
with,  the  distress  in  the  mind  of  a  Colonel  of  a  United  States 
Infantry  regiment,  deliberating  on  his  decision  to  break  his 
sword  and  his  allegiance  to  the  government  which  he  had  sworn 
to  defend  against  all  foreign  and  domestic  foes.  For,  stripped 
60 


ARMY   EXPERIENCE 

of  all  beauty  of  eulogy  and  verbiage  of  rhetoric,  that  is  what 
Robert  E.  Lee  did.  The  weak  point  in  his  character  was  his 
exaggerated  state  loyalty.  It  was  his  making  the  state  of 
Virginia  greater  than  the  United  States — the  part  greater  than 
the  whole — an  impossibility  in  mathematics  or  politics. 

There  is  an  indescribable  pathos  in  the  tragedy  of  Lee's 
life.  Almost  on  the  night  of  which  this  is  the  anniversary— 
October  16,  1859 — John  Brown,  in  a  rebellious  uprising  against 
the  United  States  government,  captured  the  little  town  of 
Harper's  Ferry.  Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee  and  his  regiment 
were  sent  to  suppress  the  rebellion.  He  did  it  in  true  soldierly 
manner.  On  the  second  of  December  John  Brown  was  hanged 
for  treason.  No  one — not  even  his  best  friends — questioned 
the  righteousness  of  the  sentence,  the  justice  of  the  execution. 
Could  some  mighty  hand  have  drawn  aside  the  curtain  of  the 
future  on  that  day,  it  would  have  revealed  to  Robert  E.  Lee, 
only  six  short  years  from  that  time,  himself  and  John  Brown 
in  changed  relations.  He,  in  a  strange  uniform,  under  a  strange 
flag,  hostile  to  the  United  States,  laying  down  his  sword  and 
surrendering  himself  to  the  mercy  of  the  United  States  Govern 
ment;  surrendering  to  troops  wearing  his  old  uniform,  pha- 
lanxed  under  the  flag  which  his  old  regiment  carried  at  the 
execution  of  Ossewattamie  Brown.  He  would  have  seen  him 
self  standing  at  the  steps  of  the  scaffold,  saved  by  the  gentle 
ness  of  the  kindliest  government  on  earth. 

In  his  letter  to  General  Scott,  tendering  his  resignation, 
Colonel  Lee  wrote,  "Save  in  defense  of  my  native  state,  I 
never  desire  again  to  draw  my  sword."  He  broke  this  pledge 
when,  in  1862,  he  invaded  with  his  armies,  the  State  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  a  sovereign  state,  even  as  was  Virginia.  From  that 
fatal  3d  of  July  at  Gettysburg,  Lee's  star  began  to  decline. 
He  was  never  again  "the  invincible  Lee".  He  made  a  stand 
here,  a  stand  there.  He  never  again  made  a  successful  advance 
against  the  Union  troops.  He  fought  like  the  soldier  he  was, 
splendidly — magnificently.  But  hairsbreadth  by  hairsbreadth, 
inch  by  inch,  he  was  forced  back  to  Appomattox.  On  the 
9th  of  April,  1865,  John  Brown  was  dead;  the  slaves  were  free; 
Lee  had  surrendered. 

For  the  beauty  and  purity  of  Robert  E.  Lee's  personal 

61 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

character  I  have  the  profoundest  reverence.  And  for  his  rare 
soldierly  qualities,  for  his  towering  abilities  in  camp  and  field, 
for  the  superb  manhood  of  his  life,  for  the  splendid  fortitude 
with  which  he  met  reverse  and  defeat,  for  all  that  was  truly 
great  in  the  life  and  character  of  the  man,  I  stand  with  uncov 
ered  reverence  before  his  memory.  But  I  cannot  ascribe  to 
him  the  greatness  of  absolute  perfection  and  universal  suprem 
acy  over  all  men  which  has  been  so  lovingly  accorded  him  by 
the  Virginian  who  is  his  eloquent  eulogist  tonight. 

Life  in  the  army  furnished  him  a  curriculum  with 
text  books  from  nature  and  experience,  with  daily 
observations  on  philosophy,  psychology,  the  logic  of 
events  and  human  values,  that  later  gave  him  the  de 
gree  of  past  master  in  the  understanding  of  all  that 
pertained  to  human  and  spiritual  life.  He  himself  said: 

There's  a  heap  of  things  you  learn  in  the  army — and  in 
civil  life — that  are  not  in  the  book,  and  nobody  can  teach  them 
so  well  as  the  other  soldier. 

The  particularly  characteristic  letter  reproduced  in 
facsimile  on  the  following  pages  shows  the  reflective 
and  reverent  spirit  he  carried  through  all  the  varied 
instructions  of  this  "open-air  college"  life. 

His  graduation  thesis  from  this  college  of  human 
experience  might  be  said  to  have  been  written  years 
afterward,  and  reflects  not  only  the  experiences  those 
years  brought  him,  but  the  deep  earnestness  of  spirit 
of  all  the  following  years  which  so  glorified  all  his  life: 

Silence,  and  the  darkness  before  the  dawn.  Across  the 
meadows,  through  fields  of  trampled  grain,  and  far  down  the 
aisles  of  the  forest,  the  stacked  muskets  mark  the  multiplied 
lines  of  the  bivouac,  broken  here  and  there  by  the  dark  squares 
where  the  batteries  are  parked.  Along  all  the  lines  the  camp 
fires  smoulder  in  their  ashes.  Across  the  velvet  blackness  of 
the  sky  the  starry  battalions  march  in  the  stately  order  of  a 
million  years — squadrons  of  the  glory  of  God. 
62 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 


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63 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 


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65 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 


66 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

Now  and  then,  as  a  bearded  veteran  might  lightly  and 
smilingly  touch  the  shoulder  of  a  little  child,  playing  at  war, 
proud  of  his  toy  gun  and  paper  epaulette,  a  great  star  that  has 
flamed  the  splendor  of  the  Almighty  since  time  began,  touches 
with  a  flash  of  golden  light  the  bayonet  of  a  sentinel,  guarding 
the  slumbers  of  his  wearied  comrades.  Tired  as  the  weariest 
of  them,  his  own  eyes  burn  and  his  body  aches  for  sleep,  but 
Honor  on  his  right  side  and  Fidelity  on  his  left,  wind  their 
mighty  arms  about  him  and  keep  pace  with  his  steady  step  as 
he  walks  his  beat.  He  is  but  a  man,  and  he  may  go  mad  from 
sleeplessness;  but  he  is  a  soldier,  and  he  will  not  sleep.  The 
morning  darkness  deepens.  It  gathers  the  sleeping  army  into 
its  silent  shadows  as  though  to  smother  it  in  gloom. 

Into  the  silence  and  the  night,  as  a  star  falling  into  an  abyss, 
clear,  shrill,  cheery,  insistent,  a  single  bugle  sings,  like  a  glad 
prophecy  of  morning  and  light  and  life,  the  rippling  notes  of 
the  reveille.  Like  an  electric  thrill  the  laughing  ecstasy  runs 
through  all  the  sleeping,  slumbering  ranks.  A  score  of  regi 
ments  catch  up  the  refrain,  and  all  the  bugles — infantry, 
battery  and  flanking  troopers — carol  the  symphony  to  the 
morning.  Shouting  and  crowing  soldiers  swell  the  chorus  with 
polyphonic  augmentation ;  the  shrill  tenors  of  neighing  chargers 
answer  the  "sounding  of  the  trumpets,  the  thunder  of  the 
captains  and  the  shouting". 

From  all  the  corrals  of  the  baggage  and  ammunition  trains, 
the  much-derided  mule,  equally  important  and  essential  in 
the  success  of  the  campaign  as  his  aristocratic  half-brother, 
raises  his  staccato  baritone  in  antiphonal  response.  The  camp, 
that  a  moment  since  lay  in  such  stillness  as  wrapped  the  ranks 
of  Sennacherib  when  the  Death  Angel  breathed  on  the  face  of 
the  sleeper,  is  awake. 

And  if  one  closed  his  eyes  to  shut  out  the  gleaming  bayonets 
and  the  stacked  muskets,  and  the  guns,  silent  and  grim,  muz 
zled  by  their  black  tompions,  and  only  listened,  he  might  think 
he  was  in  the  midst  of  a  mob  of  joyous,  care-free,  happy  school 
boys  out  on  a  vacation  lark.  For  a  soldier  is  a  man  with  a 
boy's  heart.  The  heart  of  the  morning  on  the  march  sings  in 
the  notes  of  the  reveille — joyous,  free,  exultant;  it  is  the  very 
ecstasy  of  life;  the  thrill  of  strength;  the  glad  sense  of  fearless 
ness  and  confidence;  a  champion's  desire  to  match  his  strength 

67 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

against  the  courage  and  prowess  of  a  man  worth  while.  On 
every  camp  of  true-hearted  soldiers  rises  "the  sun  of  Austerlitz. " 

At  noon  straight  over  the  earth  hangs  the  great  blazing 
sun,  as  though  he  poised  in  his  onward  flight  for  just  a  second, 
to  say,  "I  want  to  see  the  very  beginning  of  it."  He  flames 
down  on  the  long  trail  of  yellow  dust  that  stifles  the  marching 
columns.  The  songs  are  hushed,  for  the  feet  are  tired  and  the 
throats  are  parched.  The  fours  are  straggled  across  the  roads, 
as  the  files  find  the  easiest  path  for  the  route  step. 

Conversation  is  monosyllabic.  A  soldier  barks  out  a  jest 
with  a  sting  in  it,  and  catches  a  snarl  in  response.  A  tired 
man,  with  a  face  growing  white  under  the  bronze,  shakes  his 
canteen  at  his  ear,  and  decides  that  he  isn't  thirsty  enough  yet. 

A  trooper  comes  galloping  from  the  front  with  the  official 
envelope  sheathed  underneath  his  belt,  and  is  joyously  sung 
and  shouted  on  his  way  along  the  rough  edges  of  the  road  by 
the  sarcastic  infantrymen,  momentarily  grateful  for  the  diver 
sion  of  his  appearance — a  human  target  against  which  all  their 
shafts  of  wit  and  taunt  can  be  launched,  with  the  envy  of  the 
soldier  with  two  legs  in  his  hereditary  jousting  with  the  one 
who  glories  in  six. 

The  trooper  is  gone.  "The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies." 
Again  the  long,  winding  road;  the  yellow  dust;  the  hills,  the 
blazing  sun;  the  cloudless  sky;  the  tired  men;  the  silent 
impatience  over  the  step  that  has  been  quickened  apparently 
without  orders;  the  long  stretch  of  marching  since  the  last 
rest;  an  occasional  order  barked  by  a  line  officer,  to  correct 
the  too-disordered  formation;  over  all,  the  hot  stillness  of  noon. 
The  morning  breezes  died  long  ago.  The  air  is  dead.  The 
leaves  on  the  forest  trees  that  line  the  road  swooned  with  the 
prayer  for  rain  in  their  last  faint  whisper  to  the  dying  zephyr 
that  kissed  them  in  its  passing.  The  dust  of  mortality  covers 
their  brave  greenery — the  same  yellow  dust  that  veils  the 
phantom  army  marching  past. 

So  far  away — away  in  the  advance,  and  far  on  another 
road — so  faint  and  dull  that  it  scarcely  seems  to  be  a  sound 
but  rather  a  sensation  that  runs  past  the  unguarded  portal  of 
the  ear  to  touch  the  brain — the  echo  of  a  dream — Boom! 

Yet  it  is  deadly  clear;  fearfully  near.  Every  listless  head 
in  the  weary  ranks  is  lifted.  Questioning  eyes  answer  each 

68 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

other.  Every  soldier  has  read  the  message,  shouted  so  far  away 
by  a  tongue  of  flame  between  black  lips.  Unconsciously  the 
marching  ranks  are  locked.  Instinctively  the  step  is  quickened. 
The  man  with  the  whitening  face  drains  his  canteen  to  the  last 
precious  drop.  He  is  going  to  have  strength  to  get  to  the  front 
with  the  regiment.  Then,  if  he  dies,  he  will  die  in  the  line. 

"Chuck-a-chuck!"  the  very  battery  wheels  put  a  defiant 
tone  in  the  old  monotony  of  their  rumbling.  "Clippity- 
clippity!"  another  galloping  trooper  goes  down  the  column  in 
a  cloud  of  dust,  but  this  one  is  garlanded  with  cheers,  and  his 
face  lights  with  a  grim  smile.  "You'll  find  somebody  that'll 
make  you  holler  when  you  ketch  up  with  the  cavalry!"  floats 
over  his  shoulder.  "It's  his  deal,"  laughs  a  soldier,  pulling 
his  belt  a  buckle-hole  tighter.  Tramp,  tramp,  tramp. 

A  single  rifle  shot.  Sharp;  penetrating;  anger  and  sur 
prise  in  its  defiant  intonation.  A  score  of  excited  echoes 
clattering  after  it  from  hill  and  forest.  A  thrill  of  nervous 
tension  runs  through  the  column  that  closes  the  ranks  in  orderly 
formation.  Quick,  terse  orders.  Absolute  discipline  in  every 
movement.  The  crooked  rail  fences  on  either  side  the  road 
are  leveled  as  by  magic  as  the  hands  of  the  men  touch  them. 
The  column  double-quicks  out  of  the  road  to  right  and  left. 
Curtaining  woods  swallow  it. 

The  men  drop  on  their  faces.  They  are  lost  from  sight. 
The  skirmishers,  deploying  as  they  run,  swarm  down  the  hill 
slope  to  the  front  like  a  nest  of  angry  hornets.  A  handful  of 
shots  thrown  into  the  air.  They  have  found  the  pickets.  A 
fitful  rain  of  skirmish  firing;  a  shot  here;  a  half  dozen;  a 
score;  silence;  another  half  dozen  shots;  a  cheer  and  a  volley; 
far  away;  ringing  in  clear  and  close;  drifting  away  almost 
out  of  hearing;  off  to  the  right;  swinging  back  to  the  left; 
coming  in  nearer;  more  of  them,  gathering  in  numbers  and 
increasing  in  their  intensity;  batteries  feeling  the  woods;  a 
long  roll  of  musketry;  ringing  cheers;  thunders  of  awakening 
field-guns  on  right  and  left. 

The  line  leaps  to  its  feet  and  rushes  with  fixed  bayonets  to 
meet  the  on-coming  charge;  the  yellow  clouds  have  changed 
to  blue  and  gray;  sheafs  of  fire  gleaming  through  the  trees; 
sickles  of  death  gathering  in  the  bloody  harvest;  yells  of  defi 
ance  and  screams  of  agony;  shouting  of  "the  old-fashioned 

69 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

colonels"  who  ride  with  their  men;  bayonets  gleaming  about 
the  smoke-grimed  muzzles  of  the  guns;  fighting  men  swarming 
like  locusts  into  the  embrasures;  saber  and  bayonet,  sponge 
staff  and  rammer,  lunge,  thrust,  cut,  and  crashing  blow;  men 
driven  out  of  the  embrasures  and  over  the  parapet  like  dogs 
before  lions;  turning  again  with  yelp  and  snarl,  and  slashing 
their  way  back  again  like  fighting  bulldogs,  holding  every  inch 
they  gain;  hand  to  throat  and  knife  to  heart;  hurrying  rein 
forcements  from  all  sides  racing  to  the  crater  of  smoke  and 
flame;  a  long  wild  cheer,  swelling  in  fierce  exultant  cadences, 
over  and  over  and  over  the  reversed  guns,  like  the  hounds  of 
Acteon,  baying  at  the  heels  and  rending  the  bodies  of  the 
masters  for  whom  but  late  they  fought. 

A  white  flag  fluttering  like  a  frightened  dove  amidst  the 
smoke  and  flame,  the  fury  and  anguish,  the  hate  and  terror, 
the  madness  and  death  of  the  hell  of  passion  raging  over  the 
sodden  earth — the  fort  is  ours.  lo  Triumphe! 

Count  the  dead.  Number  the  hearthstones,  whereon  the 
flickering  home-light,  golden  with  children's  fancies  and 
women's  dreams,  have  been  quenched  in  agony,  heartache  and 
blood.  Take  census  of  the  widows  and  orphans.  Measure 
the  yards  of  crepe.  Gauge  the  bitter  vintage  of  tears.  Yes. 
They  have  more  than  we  have.  It  is  our  fort. 

We  won  it  fairly.  We  are  the  best  killers.  Man  to  man, 
we  can  kill  more  of  them  than  they  can  of  us.  That  establishes 
the  righteousness  of  any  cause. 

The  night  after  the  battle  isn't  so  still  as  the  night  before. 
The  soldiers  are  so  wearied,  mind  and  body  and  soul  so  tired, 
they  moan  a  little  in  their  sleep.  A  man  babbles — in  a  strange 
tongue.  He  was  the  first  man  in  the  embrasure,  and  he  is 
hurt  in  the  head.  He  will  die  before  morning.  He  is  talking 
to  his  mother,  who  died  in  a  little  Italian  mountain  village  when 
the  soldier  was  a  tiny  boy — talking  to  her  in  the  soft,  musical 
tongue  she  taught  him.  He  hasn't  spoken  a  word  of  it  for 
many  years.  But  he  is  going  out  of  this  world  of  misunder 
standings  and  strife  and  wars,  into  the  unmeasured  years  of 
peace.  Going  to  God — by  the  way  of  the  old  home — up  the 
winding  mountain  path,  past  the  cool  spring  in  the  shadow 
of  the  great  rock,  through  the  door  of  the  little  home  under 
the  trees — such  a  sweet  way  to  heaven. 

70 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

He  is  soothing  the  deadly  pain  in  his  head,  just  as  he  soothed 
all  his  headaches  and  heartaches  twenty  years  ago,  by  nestling 
in  her  caressing  arms  and  leaning  his  tired  head  against  her 
tender  breast.  No;  he  doesn't  need  the  chaplain.  His  mother 
is  comforting  him.  When  a  man  gets  to  his  mother,  it  isn't 
very  far,  then,  to  God. 

A  colonel  sits  by  a  camp  fire  with  his  face  in  his  hands. 
The  sentinel  hears  him  say,  "0,  Christ!"  His  son  was  killed 
at  his  side,  on  the  slope  of  the  fort.  The  colonel  has  been 
trying  to  write  the  boy's  mother.  But  that  is  harder,  a  thou 
sand  times  harder,  than  fighting  in  the  death-packed  embra 
sures.  The  torn  sheets  of  paper  lying  like  great  snowflakes 
about  his  feet  are  the  letters  he  has  begun.  "  My  precious  wife," 
"  Heart  of  my  heart,"  "  My  own  heart's  darling," 

It's  a  big  price  to  pay  for  a  dirt  fort. 

There  is  a  saying  that  "All's  fair  in  war."  But  the  truth 
is,  nothing  is  fair  in  war.  The  winner  has  to  pay  for  his  win 
nings  about  as  much  as  the  loser  pays  for  his  losses.  And  the 
trouble  is,  neither  one  can  pay  spot  cash,  and  have  the  trans 
action  over  and  done  with.  The  paying  for  a  fort  goes  on  so 
long  as  a  winner  or  loser  is  left  alive — heartache  and  loneliness 
and  longing  and  poverty  and  yearning  and  bitterness.  Takes 
a  long,  long  time  to  pay  for  a  common  dirt  fort,  fairly  won 
by  fair  fighting. 

And  then,  after  you've  won  it,  and  have  been  paying  for 
it  so  many  years,  you  haven't  got  it,  after  all. 

Years  after  the  battle,  a  journey  carried  me  back  to  the 
field  that  was  ploughed  into  blood-sodden  furrows  by  the  iron 
shares  of  war's  fierce  husbandry.  And  one  evening  in  May  I 
walked,  with  my  wife  by  my  side,  out  of  the  little  town  to  show 
her  the  fort  whose  name  and  story  I  had  seen  written  in  blood 
and  fire  and  smoke.  I  had  often  told  her  that  I  could  find  the 
place  if  I  were  stone  blind.  I  knew  my  way  now.  This  direc 
tion  from  the  little  river — so  far  from  the  hill — this  way  from 
the  stone  mill.  This  is  the  sloping  field,  sure  enough.  I 
remember  how  my  heart  pumped  itself  well-nigh  to  bursting 
as  I  ran  up  the  grade,  shouting  with  the  scanty  breath  I  needed 
for  running.  And  here,  at  the  crest  of  the  slope,  was  that 
whirlwind  of  flame  and  thunder,  the  Fort.  Here — under 
our  feet. 

71 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

The  sun  was  going  down  and  all  the  west  was  ruby  and 
amethyst  set  in  a  clasp  of  gold.  A  red  bird  was  singing  a 
vesper  song  that  throbbed  with  love-notes.  In  the  door  of 
the  cottage,  garlanded  with  vines,  a^woman  was  lifting  her 
happy,  laughing  face  to  the  lips  of  a  man  who,  with  his  coat 
flung  over  his  arm,  had  just  come  in  from  afield.  And  in  merry 
circles,  and  bewildering  mazes,  over  the  velvet  grasses  and  the 
perfumed  violets  that  carpeted  the  sweet  earth  where  the  Fort 
should  have  stood,  a  group  of  romping  children  laughed  and 
danced  and  ran  in  ever-changing  plays,  and  all  the  world 
around  that  old  hell-crater  was  so  sweet  and  happy  with  peace 
and  love  and  tenderness  that  the  heart  had  to  cry  because 
laughter  wasn't  happy  enough  to  speak  its  joy  and  gratitude. 
I  held  the  hand  of  my  dear  wife  close  against  my  heart  as  she 
nestled  a  little  nearer  to  my  side,  and  I  thanked  God  that  I 
couldn't  find  the  fort  I  helped  to  win. 

It  was  built  to  resist  plunging  solid  shot  and  bursting  shell 
and  treacherous  mine;  the  storm  of  shouting  columns  and  the 
patient  strategy  and  diligence  of  engineer  and  sapper.  But 
God — God  the  all-loving  Father,  scattered  the  soft  white  flakes 
of  snow — lighter  than  drifting  down  upon  it,  for  a  few  winters. 
For  a  few  summers  he  showered  upon  it  from  the  drifting  clouds 
light  raindrops  no  bigger  than  a  woman's  tears.  He  let  the 
wandering  winds  blow  gently  over  it.  The  sheep  grazed  upon 
its  slopes.  The  little  children  romped  and  played  over  it. 
The  clinging  vines  picked  at  it  with  their  tiny  fingers.  And 
lo!  while  the  soldier's  memory  yet  held  the  day  of  its  might 
and  strength  and  terror,  it  was  gone. 

"Then  the  same  day  at  evening" — the  evening  of  the  first 
Sunday;  only  three  days  after  the  agony  of  Gethsemane;  the 
terror  of  Olivet,  the  storm  of  hate  and  bigotry  on  Calvary,  the 
blood  and  sacrifice,  the  awful  tragedy  of  the  cross,  the  splendor 
of  the  resurrection — "came  Jesus  and  stood  in  the  midst  and 
saith  unto  them,  '  Peace  be  unto  you.' ' 

And  the  horror  and  the  fear  and  the  anguish  were  gone. 
"Then  were  the  Disciples  glad."  They  knew  His  face  by  the 
peace  that  shone  upon  it.  The  benediction  of  His  lips  rested 
on  their  souls.  "  Peace."  And  the  storm  was  over. 

Today,  we  climb  the  hill  outside  the  gates  of  the  city,  and 
we  cannot  find  the  holy  spot  whereon  they  crucified  Him.  We 

72 


ARMY  EXPERIENCE 

know  the  storm  of  warring  human  passions,  of  anger  and 
bigotry  and  ignorance  that  raged  around  His  cross.  But  we 
cannot  find  the  spot  where  it  stood.  For  all  the  green  hill  is 
beautiful  in  the  blessed  tranquility  of  the  peace  that  endures. 
For  love  is  sweeter  than  life,  and  stronger  than  death,  and  longer 
than  hate. 

The  hand  of  the  conqueror  and  the  hand  of  the  vanquished 
fit  into  each  other  in  the  perfect  clasp  of  friendship.  The  flag 
that  waved  in  triumph  and  the  flag  that  went  down  in  defeat 
cross  their  silken  folds  in  graceful  emblem  of  restored  brother 
hood.  The  gleaming  ploughshare  turns  the  brown  furrow 
over  the  crumbling  guns  that  ploughed  the  field  of  life  with 
death.  God's  hand  has  smoothed  away  slope  and  parapet  of 
the  Fort  that  was  won  for  an  hour  and  lost  forever. 


73 


A 


CHAPTER   III 

FINDING  HIMSELF 

FTER  he  made  his  way  back  from  Corinth 
to  Peoria,  and  was  welcomed  to  the  home 
that  had  watched  for  him,  prayed  for  him, 
was  proud  of  him,  he  wrote: 


And  my  mother,  her  brown  hair  silvered  with  the  days  of 
my  soldiering,  held  me  in  her  arms  and  counted  the  years  of 
her  longing  and  watching  with  kisses.  When  she  lifted  her 
dear  face  I  saw  the  story  of  my  marches  and  battles  written 
there  in  lines  of  anguish.  If  a  mother  should  write  her  story 
of  the  war,  she  would  pluck  a  white  hair  from  her  temple,  and 
dip  the  living  stylus  into  the  chalice  of  her  tears,  to  write  the 
diary  of  the  days  upon  her  heart. 

Out  of  these  years  of  activity  and  dramatic  interest, 
his  bubbling  nature,  as  well  as  necessity,  demanded 
employment,  and  he  sought  it  in  various  lines.  On 
one  of  his  frequent  visits  to  his  grandfather  in  Cin 
cinnati  in  August  of  1866,  his  mother  wrote  in  a  letter 
which  he  treasured  through  all  the  years: 

I  do  wish  you  could  have  made  up  your  mind  to  have 
taught.  You  could  easily  have  got  a  school,  and  you  would 
have  had  so  much  time  to  have  read  medicine  too.  They  offer 
from  $50.00  to  $60.00  in  the  country  schools.  That  would 
have  kept  you  nicely  and  put  some  by.  Mary  commences 
next  Monday  week.  She  has  had  several  applications  from 
young  ladies,  and  I  think  she  will  have  a  good  school.  John 
gets  along  about  as  usual;  folds  papers  a  while,  goes  out  and 
rests  a  week  or  two,  and  then  goes  back  to  it  again  with  renewed 
vigor. 

And  adds  as  a  postscript  to  this  letter: 
74 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

Uncle  I.  has  got  the  Post  Office.  Do  not  know  when  he 
takes  possession.  I  expect  he  could  get  you  a  school  if  you 
would  like  to  come  home. 

This  evidences  the  intense  longing  of  the  mother 
heart  to  be  helpful,  and  to  keep  her  boy  as  near  her  as 
possible,  as  well  as  the  fact  that  they  had  had  many  a 
council  as  to  what  he  should  do.  Again  in  October 
a  letter  was  sent  to  him  in  Cincinnati  from  a  Mr. 
Cousins,  seemingly  a  neighbor,  which  shows  that  he 
was  still  seeking  employment: 

I  do  really  hope  that  you  will  be  successful  in  getting  into 
something  that  will  rejoice  your  heart,  and  make  your  purse 
stand  out  with  greenbacks.  At  the  same  time  it  will  please 
me  very  much  to  see  you  back  here  again. 

This  letter  is  interlined  in  red  ink  after  a  character 
istic  fashion  by  young  Burdette,  making  a  running 
commentary  in  his  whimsical  style  on  every  paragraph. 

The  holidays  found  him  at  home  again,  and  a 
receipt  signed  by  him  December  29th  indicates  he  was 
soliciting  subscriptions  for  the  Peoria  Weekly  Tran 
script.  Yielding  to  his  mother's  persuasions  to  teach, 
he  was  granted  December  31,  1866,  a  Teacher's 
Certificate,  Second  Grade,  signed  by  Peoria  County 
Superintendent  of  Schools,  N.  E.  Worthington,  after  a 
satisfactory  examination  in  "Orthography,  reading  in 
English,  Arithmetic,  English  Grammar,  Modern  Geog 
raphy  and  the  History  of  the  United  States."  This 
gained  him  a  position  in  a  school  sixteen  miles  from 
Peoria,  and  a  letter  dated  March  16th,  1867,  bears  the 
heading  "Burdette  Academy,  near  the  City  of  Trivoli," 
and  carries  the  information  that  "father  is  now  a 
gentleman  of  leisure"  and  that  "school  will  close  the 
last  of  March." 

Another  letter  written  from  the  same  place  runs  as 
follows: 

75 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 


NOTES 
Explanatory 
Marginal  and 
Satirical. 


Talk  with  half  a  dozen 
different  teachers  and 
compare  their  various 
ideas.     To  get  the  bright 
side  of  a  teacher's  qual 
ities  and  character,  talk 
with  a  scholar  he  has 
thrashed. 


Baseball  is  as  essentially 
an  American  game  as 
Cricket  is  English.  I  am 
surprised  that  it  meets 
with  so  little  favor  among 
the  students  in  the  Acad 
emy. 

c 

The  bawl  thus  produced 
is  one  of  the  most  horrible 
combination  of  sounds 
ever  grated  on  mortal 
ear.    I  have  heard  it. 


Outside  of  the  school 
house,  throwing  clubs 
at  the  door  thereof. 

b 

With  the  Osage  club. 


In  a  horn! 


Usually  on  the  occasion 
of  some  Base  Bawl 
Match. 

76 


CHAP.   I. 

"Why  do  I  wepe  1>  the?"— SPOKESHARE. 

Running  an  Academy  is  one  of  the 
best,  most  stirring,  laziest,  energetic,  con 
temptible,  beggarly,  honorable,  profes 
sions  a  man  can  attain  to,  according  as  he 
thinks.a  My  own  establishment  goes  on 
very  smoothly.  I  have  taken  a  great 
interest  in  the  gymnastic  recreations  of 
the  students.  I  have  organized,  even  in 
this  out-of-the-way  place,  two  "  Base  Ball 
Clubs."5  One  I  have  named  the  "  Osage" 
and  the  other  the  "Weeping  Willow." 
These  clubs  are  about  the  thickness  of  a 
man's  finger  at  one  end  and  gradually 
taper  off  to  a  fine  point.  When  applied 
to  the  lower  portion  of  the  anatomy  of 
the  back  of  some  of  the  students,  these 
"clubs"  produce  the  "basest  bawl"0  you 
ever  heard.  Fact !  Played  a  match  game 
with  one  of  the  students  yesterday. 
"Osage"  club,  so  called  from  the  hedge 
where  it  was  obtained,  was  on  the  ground 
with  unusual  alacrity.  "Smallboy"  on 
deck,  "Professor"  to  the  bat.  Smallboy 
made  a  short  lively  run  but  was  "caught 
out"a  neatly  by  the  "Professor",  who 
brought  him  back.  Smallboy  again 
made  a  spurt  for  the  home  base;  Prof. 
"scored"5  twice  over  the  legs.  Good 
dodging  at  the  short  stop  succeeded  when 
Smallboy  took  the  bat  over  the  head. 
Prof,  scored  a  few  more,  and  the  game  was 
over,  with  the  usual  noise  throughout. 
My  connection  with  the  Academy  closes 
in  about  two  weeks.  As  a  general  thing 
it  has  been  very  pleasant,0  but  I  don't 
think  I'll  "wepe"  a  great  deal  when  it  is 
through  with,  though  they  love  me  a  few. 
I  have  several  times  observed  some  of  the 
"scollards"  in  tearsd  on  my  account. 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

CHAP.  II 

"Ain't  I  glad  to  get  out  of  the  wilderness?'1  —  BURNS. 
"The  boy  stood  on  the  Burning  Deck!"  —  PSLAMS. 

The  custom  here  is  to  go  to  bed  at 
sunset  and  get  up  some  time  in  the  night8 

and  eat  breakfast-     If  by  any  means  the 
ing.    This  barbarous      family  fail  to  retire  at  dusk,  candles  are 

custom  of  getting  up        lighted  and  pater  familias  takes  a  last 

oejore  trie  sun,  as  ij  _  .       _ 

the  sun  did  not  know       year  newspaper  and  reads  it  aloud  for  the 


amusement  and  edification  of  his  hearers. 
ism.    it  is  true  that        Any    one    moving    around,    whispering, 

the  early  birdcatched       whistling  in  a  soft  low  musical  whistle,  or 

the  worm,  but  what  con-  __.      3   .  .  ,          . 

solution  is  that  to  the       shuffling    his   or    her   feet,    is    instantly 

SLtttSf"  withered  *>y  a  piercing  «lance>  to  the 

have  been  caught.  entire  satisfaction  of  the  rest  of  the 

community.  Personally,  I  am  very  hard 
to  wither.  Under  ordinary  circumstances 
I  do  not  wilt  worth  a  cent.  But  when  I 

How  are  the  mity  falkn?  consider  myself  as  merely  one  of  a  com- 

Give  it  up?    Because       munity,  I  share  the  awea  which  the  others 

they  can't  neither  of  ...     *      «       •     i    /.     i  *. 

'em  climb  a  tree.  of  the  family  circle  feel  for  its  august  head. 

Referring  to  this  experience  once,  he  wrote: 

NEBRASKA  CITY,  Dec.  3,  1881. 

Why,  bless  you,  boy,  I  was  president  of  the  college;  that 
is,  I  taught  school  one  winter  in  district  No.  4.  "Prof  "  Wor- 
thington;  Nic.  Worthington,  was  county  superintendent  that 
year.  And  I  boarded  at  James  Morris'.  Ah,  talk  about  the 
present  system  of  public  schools.  New  stone  school  house; 
I  was  the  first  teacher.  I  don't  know;  must  have  been  forty 
pupils;  maybe  fifty.  And  thirty  of  them  were  named  Holt. 
The  Holt  family  had  a  working  majority  on  joint  ballot  in 
that  district.  William  Henry  Holt  was  the  smallest  boy  in 
school,  I  think.  No,  Louis  Green  was.  William  Henry  was 
as  full  of  mischief  as  a  shad  is  of  bones,  and  too  good-natured 
for  any  one  to  get  cross  at.  It  was  a  black,  barren,  uneventful 
day  when  that  boy  couldn't  keep  up  a  steady  fusilade  of  potato 
popguns.  Frank  Ford  was  the  smartest  boy;  a  hard  student, 
but  of  very  delicate  health.  John—  oh,  I  can't  remember 

77 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

names — John,  the  biggest  boy,  with  a  pair  of  shoulders  like 
a  giant;  best  natured  and  best  dispositioned  boy  in  the  school. 
I  was  always  glad  of  that,  for  when  he  stood  up  beside  me  I 
had  to  lay  my  head  back  until  my  neck  ached  to  look  into 
his  big  honest  face. 

Three  months'  experience  seemed  to  have  satisfied 
him,  or  satisfied  his  pupils  that  his  particular  talents 
must  be  utilized  along  other  lines.  Jacob  Topping 
employed  him  for  a  short  time  as  a  clerk  in  his  crockery 
store  "without  fatality  to  dish  or  human " — as  he  later 
recorded,  but  while  working  in  McBurney's  house  and 
sign  painting  shop  an  explosion  of  naptha  seriously 
burned  him  about  the  face.  It  was  here  he  received 
his  first  real  encouragement  to  study  art  and  the  way 
was  opened  by  natural  stages,  which  was  ultimately  to 
follow  through  the  rest  of  his  career. 

Early  in  1868  he  wrote: 

I  have  assumed  charge  of  the  United  States  Railway  Mail 
Service  as  junior  clerk  in  the  Peoria  office  and  extra  man  for 
the  route  agent. 

A  letter  under  date  of  April  21st,  to  his  aunt,  reveals 
his  attitude  toward  this  work: 

I  am  immersed  in  business,  have  ever  so  much  more  to 
do  than  I  can  stand  up  to,  have  denied  myself  any  kind  of 
pleasure  or  recreation  whatever,  devoting  my  entire  time  and 
all  my  talents  to  the  Government,  neglectful  of  friends  and 
home,  deaf  to  the  siren  voices  of  pleasure,  blind  to  the  allure 
ments  of  the  outside  world,  forgetful  of  "Evalina",  who 
esteems  me  a  "brute,"  alike  regardless  of  calls  of  pleasure, 
fame,  love,  or  anything  else  but  dinner. 

I  am  a  ghost  of  the  P.  0.  entombed  amidst  its  piles  of  dead- 
letters,  wandering  aimlessly  about  amidst  its  bewildering 
mazes  of  "cases",  pigeon  holes,  lock  boxes,  through  pouches, 
way  boxes,  "tie-sacks",  brass-locks,  paper  and  "Dis"  cases; 
devoid  of  feeling  as  the  toughest  mail  sack  in  the  service,  it 
matters  little  to  me  how  much  or  how  horribly,  with  stamp 

78 


FINDING   HIMSELF 

whose  steel  is  no  harder  than  a  mailing  clerk's  heart  I  mar  the 
spotless  surface  of  some  delicate  perfumed  billet,  or  smash 
the  "pictur"  of  some  unhappy  swain  who  had  practiced  for 
hours  to  acquire  the  peculiarly  sweet  expression  of  face  and 
feature  exhibited  on  such  occasions,  which  my  rude  hand  has 
"smollixed". 

Wedding  cards,  sheriff's  notices,  duns,  love  letters,  all  pass 
alike  through  careless  hands;  from  early  morning  till  late  at 
night  I  scatter  broadcast  over  the  land  my  strangely  assorted 
messages.  Sending  to  some  homes  tidings  of  joy  unspeakable, 
news  of  some  loved  one  long  mourned  as  dead  mayhap,  tossing 
with  the  same  hand  a  swift-footed  messenger  of  heart-crushing 
woe  into  homes,  but  a  moment  before  the  happiest  in  the  world, 
sending  to  some  lonely  wanderer  words  of  cheer  and  encourage 
ment  from  dear  ones  at  home,  white-winged  messengers  of  love, 
weighted  with  the  hopes  and  longings  of  tender  hearts  and  true, 
side  by  side  with  them  messages  of  darkest  portent,  words  of 
bitter  wrath  and  undying  hatred,  oh,  Lum,  the  mystery  of  one 
hour's  work  of  mine!  If  I  knew  everything  I  sent  out  I  don't 
believe  I  or  any  man  could  do  it.  But  "where  ignorance  is 
bliss,  etc."  I  whistle,  laugh  and  sing  as  though  I  were  handling 
chips  instead  of 

Shortly  after,  under  quite  another  temper  of  spirit, 
he  wrote  to  this  same  correspondent: 

Our  life  here  is  always  woefully  checkered.  For  one  day 
of  cloudless  summer,  we  count  weary  weeks  of  changing  April 
and  drear  December.  From  the  cradle  to  the  grave  it  is  only 
a  pilgrimage,  not  a  pleasure  jaunt,  and  sorrow  and  disappoint 
ment  we  must  all  look  for  at  every  step  of  our  toilsome  march. 
But  we  look  beyond  all  these.  Each  night  a  day's  journey 
nearer  home,  nearer  through  with  earth  and  its  storms,  its 
chill  blasts  of  disappointment  that  embitter  our  life,  its  great 
load  of  sorrows  that  crowd  out  our  joys  from  our  hearts,  sor 
rows  that  sweep  over  our  skies  like  dark  clouds  shutting  us 
out  from  the  glorious  sunlight  streaming  above  them.  These 
must  be  endured,  the  cross  must  be  carried,  but  how  much 
lighter  it  is  when  loving  hands  bear  up  its  crushing  weight,  and 
strong,  tender  arms  support  the  form  that  faints  beneath  it. 
Sorrow  we  cannot  escape,  but  when  it  comes  'tis  naught  to 

79 


ROBERT  J.   BTJRDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

bear,  if  loving  hearts  but  share  it  with  us.  But  I  won't  preach 
to  you  any  longer.  I  don't  want  to  make  anyone  blue  because 
I  have  a  fit  on. 

Many  years  afterward,  when  interviewed  concern 
ing  this  service  to  the  Federal  Government,  he  said: 

I  was  in  the  railway  mail  service  when  there  really  wasn't 
any  such  thing.  I  was  a  route  agent,  a  "router"  who  ran  a 
short  line,  and  had  lots  to  do,  and  few  people  to  boss  him..  I 
ran  from  Peoria,  111.,  to  Logansport,  and,  my  boy,  those  were 
great  days.  I  had  one  end  of  a  big  car,  and  the  baggage  and 
the  baggage  agent  had  the  other,  which  made  it  convenient 
for  us  to  swap  lies  when  there  wasn't  much  to  do.  Everything 
would  go  all  right  in  the  mail  line  during  the  spring  and  summer, 
but  after  that  came  the  "winter  of  our  discontent"  when  far 
mers  began  to  ship  apples.  They  would  be  loaded  on  the  front 
of  the  baggage  car,  making  it  very  heavy  and  a  load  itself. 
I  would  have  about  three  hundred  pounds  of  mail,  much  of  it 
in  the  cases  all  distributed.  Things  would  go  along  all  right 
until  we  struck  the  bridge  three  or  four  miles  out  of  Logansport. 
The  train  would  strike  that  bridge  with  a  jolt  and  swing  that 
was  awful,  and  almost  every  time  it  would  jolt  all  my  mail  in 
the  light  end  of  the  car  out  of  the  cases  and  mix  it  up  on  the 
floor.  That  would  break  my  young  heart,  and  many  a  day  I 
have  cried  and  worked  those  few  miles  like  a  little  boy. 

Then  I  remember  the  time  I  had  throwing  papers  off  while 
the  train  was  moving.  I  had  a  package  for  Red  Mill  when  I 
didn't  know  the  road  very  well.  As  I  came  up  to  the  place 
I  let  the  package  fly.  It  went  right  through  one  of  the  mill 
windows,  and  a  train  of  profanity  followed  me  to  the  next 
station.  Next  trip  I  decided  to  throw  that  package  off  in  time, 
so  in  my  anxiety  I  threw  it  off  a  quarter  of  a  mile  too  soon  and 
saw  it  floating  down  the  river  back  of  us.  I  was  so  disgusted 
that  when  I  saw  a  package  for  Cross  Roads  22,  I  just  said  to 
myself,  "I'll  be  blamed  if  I'll  throw  it  off,"  and  I  carried  it 
back  to  Peoria. 


I  was  in  Washington  just  after  Frank  Hatton  was  appointed 
postmaster-general,  so  I  went  to  congratulate  him.  You 
80 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

know  Frank  and  I  were  on  the  Hawk-Eye  together.  Frank 
said  to  me:  "Bob,  you  were  in  the  service  yourself  one  time, 
weren't  you?" 

I  confessed. 

"Well,  I'll  show  you  your  record." 

I  said  I  hoped  to  goodness  he  wouldn't  do  anything  like 
that,  but  he  flashed  up  a  lot  of  books  which  showed  that  I 
had  missent  an  awful  lot  of  stuff,  and  it  was  still  hanging  over 
me.  You  see  I  was  the  only  man  on  my  run,  and  on  the  Illinois 
Central  South  they  had  two  clerks,  so  when  I  got  a  good  deal 
of  mail  and  didn't  feel  well  I  bunched  the  whole  thing  up  and 
sent  it  to  the  "I.  C.  South".  There  it  was  in  Washington 
checked  up  against  me.  As  it  was  all  true,  I  couldn't  say  a 
word,  but  I  thought  it  was  pretty  tough  to  hold  that  up  against 
a  fellow  so  long. 

Frank  thought  it  was  a  good  joke.  But  I  said  to  him, 
"Well,  I'll  take  that,  but  I  can  tell  one  on  you."  Frank  said 
to  go  ahead,  and  I  said: 

"When  you  were  appointed  postmaster-general,  Frank, 
you  sent  your  valet  to  the  senate  to  hear  all  the  gossip  he 
could  about  what  the  senators  said  when  your  name  was  sent 
in  for  confirmation." 

"Well?"  said  Frank. 

And  when  he  came  back  you  asked  him  very  eagerly  what 
nice  things  the  senators  said,  and  he  replied:  "Oh,  they  just 
laughed."  Well,  Frank  didn't  hold  any  more  things  over  my 
head  that  day. 

In  April  he  wrote  to  his  Aunt: 
Father  is  not  well.    Mother  is  feeble. 

And  this  mother — who  gave  her  life  cheerfully  to  the 
bearing  and  caring  for  ten  children — at  the  early  age  of 
forty-five,  faded  and  passed  on,  June  23,  1868.  Mary, 
the  "little  mother",  wrote  of  her  to  her  brother  Rob  a 
few  weeks  later: 

When  my  longing  heart  cries  out  for  the  mother,  who, 
for  so  many  years  cared  for  us  with  love  so  unselfish,  so  untir 
ing,  and  taught  us  so  many  lessons  of  patient  and  unwavering 
6  81 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

trust  in  God — when  I  think  of  her  and  long  for  her  with  desire 
so  intense  that  it  seems  as  if  she  must  come,  and  then  awake 
to  the  very  startling  truth  that  she  has  gone  from  earth  forever, 
and  we  must  live  without  her  year  after  year,  involuntary 
sighs  escape,  and  the  tears,  unbidden,  start,  but  we  sorrow  not 
as  those  without  hope.  .  .  .  May  we  not  cherish  the  hope 
that  our  mother  in  the  perfect  life  of  peace  and  purity  and  bliss 
ful  rest,  may  guide  us  more  truly  than  she  could  have  done  in 
this  world  of  turmoil  and  strife  and  sin.  I  love  to  think  thus, 
and  the  fond  hope  goes  very  far  to  soften  the  pain  of  separation. 

Soon  after  his  mother's  death,  he  left  Peoria  for 
New  York  to  enter  Cooper  Institute,  for  the  instruction 
the  friend  had  encouraged  him  to  believe  would  be 
worth  the  struggle. 

October  31st  he  wrote  a  letter  from  Cincinnati  to 
the  Peoria  Transcript,  signed  "Rob  Burdette."  After 
a  visit  in  Pruntytown,  his  father's  birthplace,  and 
arriving  in  New  York  early  in  December,  he  wrote  on 
the  10th  his  first  New  York  letter  to  the  Peoria  Tran 
script.  Having  passed  through  Philadelphia,  he  wrote 
of  it  as  the  "checker-board  town": 

It  is  the  worst  place  in  the  world  for  anybody  that  was 
not  born  there.  Its  long  endless  streets  without  a  curve  or  a 
wrinkle  through  their  entire  length,  their  interminable  rows  of 
white  shutters,  all  standing  open  alike  and  closing  at  the  same 
instant  with  mathematical  precision  and  undeviating  regularity, 
the  awful  primness  which  stares  you  in  the  face  from  the  early 
drab  of  morning  to  their  broad-brimmed  sunset,  gives  the  stran 
ger  a  kind  of  straight-jacket  feeling. 

He  says  of  New  York: 

But  this  delightful  old  mixed-up  place,  where  every  avenue 
you  take  loses  itself  in  a  maze  of  entanglements,  where  the 
stranger,  after  securing  full  and  definite  instructions  from  a 
policeman  who  can  speak  English,  buttons  up  his  coat  and 
resolutely  starts  out  to  somewhere,  and  after  turning  the  first 
two  corners  as  per  directions,  finds  himself  back  at  the  same 
82 


FINDING   HIMSELF 

identical  corner  and  policeman  he  started  from;  where  the 
streets  take  a  malicious  delight  in  leading  the  wayfarer  up 
against  a  dead  wall  or  out  to  some  wharf;  where  everything 
is  so  crooked  that  were  a  man  to  walk  rapidly  enough  he  could 
almost  see  himself  going  down  another  street.  This  is  home 
like.  This  is  refreshing.  This  is  America. 

He  also  wrote: 

General  Grant  left  this  city  today.  The  closeness  with 
which  he  has  been  watched  during  his  stay,  precludes  any  possi 
bility  of  his  having  stolen  anything.  Early  in  the  morning  the 
distinguished  smoker  aired  himself  on  Broadway,  visiting 
Frederick's  picture  gallery,  A.  T.  Stewart's  new  store,  and 
attended  the  wedding  reception  of  Mr.  Hamilton  Fish's  daugh 
ter.  Gen.  Geo.  B.  McClellan  called  on  the  President-elect  at 
the  St.  Nicholas,  and  was  in  private  conference  with  him  for 
over  an  hour.  As  the  nature  of  the  conference  between  the 
young  "Napoleon  of  the  West"  and  his  chief  is  entirely  un 
known,  everybody  puts  his  own  construction  on  it.  I  believe 
a  majority  of  the  political  prophets  have  conceded  to  "Little 
Mac"  a  seat  in  Ulysses'  cabinet.  From  his  penchant  for 
spades,  I  think  he  would  be  more  at  home  in  the  Department 
of  Agriculture. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  help  noticing,  however,  as  I  jour 
neyed  eastward,  the  rapid  development  of  the  pannier.  I 
believe  there  was  one  visible  in  Peoria  when  I  left.  At  Cincin 
nati,  Fourth  Street  wore  one  timidly  and  awkwardly,  evidently 
half  afraid  of  them;  at  Washington,  Pennsylvania  Avenue 
sported  them  awkwardly,  but  numerous;  Baltimore  worried 
a  very  defiant  one;  at  Philadelphia,  Chestnut  Street  arrayed 
herself  in  them  as  a  garment,  and  here,  oh  my!  it's  a  case  of 
nudity  not  to  have  one  on.  They  are  clearly  a  success.  They 
have  been  "reviled  and  persecuted  of  men,"  but  they  have 
risen  triumphant  over  the  storm  of  abuse  and  sarcasm  which 
has  beat  upon  them. 

The  power  of  his  descriptive  pen  was  strongly  and 
delightfully  shown  in  another  letter  to  the  Transcript, 
under  date  of  January  19,  1869: 

83 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Not  to  "do"  Plymouth  Church  is  never  to  have  been  at 
or  near  Brooklyn,  and  more  from  a  desire  to  see  all  the  "lions" 
of  this  vicinity,  than  from  any  expectation  of  great  good  result 
ing  from  the  pilgrimage,  I  consulted  the  universal  guide  book, 
the  police,  and  wended  my  way  to  this  house  of  worship,  last 
Sunday  night.  It's  easily  found.  After  reaching  Brooklyn 
you  have  only  to  follow  the  crowds  that  you  see  converging 
from  all  directions  to  a  common  center.  That  center  is  Ply 
mouth  Church. 

I  thought  I  would  stroll  leisurely  down  past  the  edifice  so 
as  to  be  sure  of  its  exact  locality  before  going  there  for  the  eve 
ning  service.  I  knew  that  the  congregation  began  to  assemble 
long  before  the  doors  were  open,  but  I  was  somewhat  surprised 
on  making  my  early  reconnoissance  to  discover  a  crowd  of  nearly 
two  hundred  people  collected  on  the  sidewalk  and  in  the  street 
in  front  of  the  closed  gates  of  the  church  yard,  standing  patiently 
there  in  the  midst  of  a  driving  snow  storm. 

I  mingled  with  these  zealous  pleasure  seekers,  and  stood 
with  them  looking  at  a  plain,  unpretending,  common-looking 
brick  church,  nothing  gothic  or  imposing  about  it;  its  style  of 
architecture  might  have  been  copied  from  any  frontier  church. 
A  stranger  passing  through  Brooklyn  would  not  give  it  a  second 
look,  if  perchance  his  eye  rested  on  it  at  all.  Nevertheless  this 
is  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  church. 

When  the  doors  were  opened,  all  strangers  and  visitors, 
all  persons  not  pew  owners,  were  seated  in  the  galleries  or  the 
back  seats  to  await,  up  to  a  certain  hour,  the  arrival  of  pew 
holders,  after  which  all  the  seats  were  thrown  open,  and  Jew 
and  Gentile,  the  pew  holder  and  the  sojourner  in  the  land,  take 
their  chances  alike,  and  are  seated  here,  there  and  everywhere 
with  democratic  impartiality. 

The  long  row  of  benches  around  the  gallery  was  densely 
crowded  with  tourists,  interlopers  and  plebeians  long  before 
the  pews  began  to  fill.  I  was  amazed  when  an  energetic  usher 
ordered  us  to  sit  closer  together,  and  actually  got  about  a  dozen 
more  worshippers  seated.  Scarcely  had  we  got  settled  into 
breathing  postures  again,  when  the  same  usher,  inexorable  as 
a  street  car  conductor,  packed  us  still  closer  and  wedged  in 
another  delegation,  and  there  we  sat,  our  arms  hanging  down 
before  us,  hands  solemnly  clasped  on  our  knees,  jammed  and 
84 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

pressed  so  tightly  together,  wrought  into  such  intimate  con 
tact,  that  I  could  almost  tell  what  my  neighbor  was  thinking 
about,  and  had  the  usher  trod  on  the  corns  of  the  man  at  the 
end  of  the  seat,  I  believe  all  the  rest  of  us  would  have  "  hollered  ". 

But  the  pews  began  to  fill  up  rapidly,  and  when  the  organist 
took  his  place  and  with  masterly  touches  filled  the  room  with 
grand  impressive  symphonies,  the  pews  were  opened  to  all, 
seats  were  let  down  across  the  aisle,  the  crowd  that  had  been 
waiting  outside  the  door  came  thronging  in,  and  in  a  few  min 
utes  not  a  single  seat,  not  a  foot  of  vacant  space  could  be  seen 
in  the  house,  nothing  but  a  dense  motionless  sea  of  heads,  a 
mass  of  silent,  quiet,  expectant  humanity. 

The  interior  of  the  church  is  as  plain  and  simple  as  its 
exterior  appearance.  The  pews  are  white,  finished  with  dark 
colored  polished  wood,  and  though  cushions  are  laid  along  all 
the  pews,  the  backs  of  none  of  them  are  cushioned  or  even 
curved.  A  single  circlet  of  gas  in  the  centre  of  the  ceiling  lights 
the  spacious  auditorium.  The  first  gallery  runs  clear  around 
the  room  to  the  organ,  which  is  built  over  and  back  of  the  pulpit. 
Its  wood  work  is  massive,  rich-looking  black  walnut,  and  is 
not  decked  off  with  a  profusion  of  gilded  pipes  and  tinsel  flour 
ishes.  Everything  about  the  church  inside  and  out  is  charac 
terized  by  a  delightful  homelike  simplicity.  On  a  stand  by  the 
pulpit,  and  on  the  table  beside  Mr.  Beecher's  chair,  you  can 
always  see  beautiful  bouquets,  the  only  ornaments  in  the  place, 
and  what  more  fitting  decorations  can  we  find  for  the  house 
of  God  than  the  beautiful  creations  of  His  own  hand?  Besides 
this  first  gallery  a  second  one  is  built  across  the  end  of  the 
room  like  the  ordinary  galleries  of  your  western  churches. 
Ahem!  This  was  also  filled  to  repletion. 

Mr.  Beecher's  sermon,  was  of  course,  characteristic.  His 
services  have  been  described  time  and  again  by  better  and 
more  glowing  pens  than  mine  (this  one  I  am  using  now  is  a 
Washington  Medallion),  hence  I  will  not  attempt  a  description. 
One  is  charmed  with  him  at  the  very  outset.  His  delivery  is 
perfect,  every  word  reaches  the  most  distant  corners  of  the 
room,  clear  and  distinct;  his  manner  is  at  all  times  earnest, 
seldom  excited,  but  always  impressive,  always  carrying  his 
audience  with  him. 

Murmurs  of  laughter  by  his  audience  frequently  interrupt 
his  sermon.  Sometimes  they  are  very  hearty  outbursts.  But 

85 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

whenever  you  hear  the  audience  laugh,  be  sure  a  telling  blow 
has  been  struck,  or  an  argument  clinched  in  a  masterly  manner. 
You  cannot  for  the  life  of  you  help  laughing  at  some  of  his 
illustrations  and  remarks,  while  you  feel  their  force  and  vigor 
and  depth  through  all  their  coating  of  humor,  quaint  and 
original.  I  never  was  a  very  great  admirer  of  Mr.  Beecher 
until  Sunday  night.  Now  I  can't  help  feeling  that  my  previous 
estimate  of  him  has  been  a  very  unjust  one.  One  seems  to 
feel  what  the  man  really  is,  while  listening  to  him. 

And  then  his  church  is  such  a  home-like  place.  The  entire 
absence  of  formality,  the  simplicity  and  uniformity  of  every 
thing  around  you,  make  you  feel  as  much  at  home  there,  as  if 
you  paid  seven  or  eight  hundred  dollars  for  a  pew.  And  when 
ever  any  of  my  Peoria  friends  come  to  see  me,  we  will  go  to 
hear  Dr.  Crosby  (in  my  humble  estimation  the  best  preacher 
in  New  York)  our  first  Sunday  morning,  and  at  night  I'll  drag 
them  over  to  Brooklyn. 

This  was  the  sketch  of  a  young  man  not  yet  recog 
nized  as  even  a  newspaper  man  and  whose  fondest 
dreams  did  not  include  the  fact  that  later  he  was  to  en 
joy  the  personal  friendship  of  Mr.  Beecher,  nor  that 
in  1887,  when  a  memorial  was  being  prepared  for  the 
Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  which  was  restricted  to 
letters  and  literary  contributions  of  a  limited  number 
from  the  most  distinguished  men  and  women  of 
America  and  Europe,  Edward  W.  Bok,  who  was  gather 
ing  this  material,  asked  Mr.  Burdette  to  make  his 
contribution  in  the  following  manner: 

It  is  the  special  desire  of  the  large  number  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
friends  interested  in  this  final  tribute  to  his  memory  that  it 
shall  contain  a  contribution  from  the  pen  of  a  gentleman  whom 
the  renowned  patriot  preacher  so  warmly  admired,  and  whose 
efforts  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  others  he  frequently  referred 
to  during  his  lifetime. 

In  making  this  request  of  you,  Mr.  Burdette,  I  beg  that 
you  will  believe  that  it  is  one  uppermost  with  me,  and  the 
granting  of  which  I  should  esteem  indeed  a  high  favor. 
86 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

From  the  promises  and  contributions  already  in  hand, 
including  Generals  Sherman,  Fremont,  and  Howard,  Admiral 
Porter,  Canon  Farrar,  Dr.  Talmage,  Dr.  Neuman  Hall,  Mrs. 
Gen'l.  Grant,  Mrs.  Garfield,  Henry  Irving,  Mde.  Modjeska, 
Mme.  Janauscheck,  Dion  Boucicault  and  a  host  of  others 
equally  famous,  the  memorial  to  Mr.  Beecher  promises  to  be 
most  notable,  and  we  should  feel  that  Mr.  Beecher's  personal 
wish  was  carried  out,  could  he  but  express  it,  were  it  to  receive 
a  contribution  from  your  ready  pen. 

A  few  words  of  remembrance  from  you  would  give  us  all 
sincere  pleasure,  and  I  am  therefore  particularly  anxious  that 
you  will  grant  it. 

I  can  scarcely  be  too  urgent  in  my  request  for  your  kind 
and  valuable  co-operation,  and  I  fervently  hope  that  you  will 
extend  this  courtesy. 

Again  writing  from  New  York,  in  a  Transcript 
letter  on  the  celebration  of  St.  Patrick's  day,  he  wrote: 

It  seems  that  St.  Patrick's  day  in  the  morning  is  a  different 
man  from  the  same  fellow  in  the  afternoon.  Of  course,  at 
night  the  "drowning  of  the  Shamrock"  was  successfully  per 
formed  wherever  it  was  attempted,  and  was  attempted  wherever 
two  or  three  Irishmen  could  be  found.  I  didn't  stay  up  to 
see  this  interesting  part  of  the  celebration,  but  sought  my  virtu 
ous  couch  at  an  early  hour,  happy  that  S.  P.  D.  had  arrived, 
for  I  was  tired  of  cold  weather,  and  though  I  well  knew  that  "one 
swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,"  I  was  confident  that  there 
would  be  enough  swallows  in  New  York  that  night  to  make  a 
complete  set  of  seasons.  But  if  such  was  the  case,  they  have 
started  another  winter  by  overdoing  the  thing,  for  although  we 
had  a  slight  glimpse  of  spring  when  St.  Patrick  was  here,  this 
morning  is  cold  enough  to  remind  one  of  that  touching  little 
stanza  of  Robert  Browning's: 

"  The  first  bird  of  spring 
Attempted  to  sing, 

But  ere  he  had  rounded  a  note, 
He  fell  from  the  limb, 
And  a  dead  bird  was  him, 

For  the  music  had  friz  in  his  throat." 

Maybe  that  isn't  Browning.     I  wouldn't  be  positive. 

87 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Robert  J.  Burdette  always  declared  he  went  to 
New  York  with  the  avowed  intention  of  ultimately 
"painting  a  great  historic  painting  that  was  to  cover  a 
canvas  as  big  as  the  side  of  a  barn,  with  buckets  of 
paint  and  a  name  made  famous  signed  in  the  corner/' 
But  a  letter  to  "Dear  Lum"  reveals  some  of  the  things 
he  actually  did,  for  he  said: 

The  tubes  of  color  would  have  cost  fifty  dollars,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  dryer  and  oil  varnish,  but  I  was  never  able  at 
that  time  to  raise  the  fifty  dollars. 

New  York  did  not  seem  to  want  any  "great  artist", 
at  least  not  so  young  a  one. 

I  presume  that  in  the  natural  order  of  things  you  have 
sagely  concluded  that  I  have  forgotten  all  about  you  in  the 
whirl  and  tumult  and  bustle  of  a  Metropolitan  existence. 
Nay,  not  so,  but  I'm  mortal  busy,  although  I  do  feel  terribly 
ashamed  of  my  outrageous  neglect  of  my  best  correspondent, 
the  first  one  I  ever  had.  I  obtained  soon  after  coming  here, 
a  clerkship  with  the  Equitable  Life  Assurance  Society,  but 
left  that  position  a  week  ago  and  am  now  following  my  own 
occupation,  card  writing,  which  is  just  as  remunerative  as  the 
other  and  gives  me  more  time  to  prosecute  my  studies.  You 
wouldn't  think  that  a  man  who  covers  paper  with  scrawls  like 
this  could  write  visiting  cards,  but  on  fancy  lettering  I  can 
just  knock  the  socks  off  of  a  printing  machine. 

I  am  attending  night  class  in  the  school  of  Art  at  Cooper 
Institute,  and  I  have  fallen  among  a  lot  of  good  friends  here, 
through  whose  influence  I  expect  to  get  a  ticket  to  the  Academy 
of  Design.  I  write  cards  about  half  the  week  or  less,  that 
meets  the  week's  expenses,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  goes  in 
hard  study.  I  never  think  of  going  to  bed  before  twelve  o'clock 
and  I  have  written  as  late  as  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
I'm  not  making  any  money,  barely  meeting  necessary  expenses, 
but  I'm  finishing  my  education  and  getting  a  profession  that 
has  money  in  it.  Have  you  noticed  any  of  my  "versatile 
and  talented  "  productions  floating  around  in  the  current  liter 
ature  of  the  day?  There's  lots  of  it. 

88 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

I  have  a  real  nice  snug  cozy  room  and  when  "  Uncle " 
Andrew  comes  I  am  prepared  to  do  the  honors  of  my  house 
and  show  him  around  the  city.  Had  he  come  here  Christmas 
he  would  have  found  me  at  a  hotel,  the  "Belmont"  down  in 
the  city,  near  Broadway.  Now  I  have  a  nice  room  in  a  private 
house,  up  on  17th  Street  between  7th  and  8th  Avenues.  I'm 
thoroughly  posted  on  New  York  and  its  vicinity,  am  very 
metropolitan,  and  this  stirring  lively  old  town  hasn't  many 
places  of  interest  that  I  don't  know  the  ropes  of. 

It's  a  small  village.  I  only  live  two  miles  from  the  City 
Hall,  and  you  can't  find  the  town  built  closer  than  it  is  around 
me.  The  village  is  about  twenty-two  miles  in  area  and  since 
I  left  Virginia  I  haven't  seen  a  single  patch  of  real  live  wild 
woods,  nor  enough  fresh  free  air  to  keep  a  rat  alive.  My  time 
is  all  my  own  now,  so  if  any  one  wants  to  be  shown  around, 
let  them  come.  I'll  be  only  too  glad  to  see  a  familiar  face, 
for  at  times  I'm  woefully  homesick. 

I  am  becoming  acquainted  in  a  real  good  circle  of  people, 
but  I  don't  want  to  go  out  much,  or  I'll  have  to  keep  it  up, 
which  would  encroach  too  much  on  my  precious  precious  time. 
But  to  a  cove  who  always  took  as  much  delight  in  home  and 
home  pleasures  and  comforts  as  I  did,  this  thing  of  living 
amongst  perfect  strangers  is  pretty  hard,  and  it's  going  to  be 
an  awful  pull  to  make  out  two  years  of  it.  But  I  can't  really 
make  myself  what  I  want  to  be  in  any  less  time.  So  here's 
for  it. 

I  am  already  established  at  "Ralph  Wells'"  Mission 
Sunday  School  (Grace  Mission),  the  greatest  Mission  School  in 
the  United  States,  as  Scriptural  Artist,  and  the  way  the  black 
board  is  illuminated  every  Sunday  astonishes  Gotham.  The 
lesson  is  always  illustrated  on  the  board.  I  have  already 
perpetrated  Jacob's  ladder,  Rebekah  at  the  well,  and  some  other 
difficult  pieces.  The  drawings  are  made  in  colored  crayon, 
very  large,  and  have  been  highly  and  favorably  commented  on. 
I  have  no  doubt  of  my  ultimate  success;  it  only  requires  cour 
age  and  steady  application. 

Bless  you,  when  I  came  here  the  city  was  and  is  now  so 
overflowed  with  young  men  unable  to  get  any  kind  of  employ 
ment  that  the  Herald  and  Tribune  were  urging  them  to  leave 
the  city  and  go  anywhere,  rather  than  stay  here  and  starve. 

89 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

It  rubbed  me  very  hard  for  a  while  but  I  hung  on,  knew  only 
one,  just  one  man  in  all  this  great  city,  and  I  got  a  situation, 
and  now,  I,  a  rough  chap  from  the  prairies,  a  youth  whose 
penmanship  is  execrable,  who  never  put  a  foot  inside  of  a  com 
mercial  college,  or  received  a  mite  of  instruction  in  fancy  letter 
ing,  am  here  in  New  York  City,  getting  plenty  of  work  to  do 
in  one  of  their  finest  vocations,  and  contending  successfully 
against  well  established,  cultured,  finished  opposition. 

A  man  can  make  his  way  anywhere,  if  he  only  trusts  in 
God  and — pulls  off  his  coat  and  shows  that  he  means  business. 
I  don't  believe  God  ever  helps  any  man  that  lays  on  his  back 
and  prays,  though  he  pray  ever  so  lustily.  A  man  wants  to 
feel  and  pray  as  though  God  was  going  to  do  everything,  and 
then  get  right  off  of  his  knees  and  go  to  work  as  though  he  had 
it  all  to  do  himself,  and  God  wasn't  to  help  him  in  the  least. 

End  of  the  sermon. 

In  March  he  went  down  to  Washington  to  attend 
the  inauguration,  caught  a  severe  cold  and  was  obliged 
to  go  to  the  hospital  in  Baltimore.  Conditions  follow 
ing  this  were  to  put  to  severe  test  his  usual  optimism, 
courage  and  faith,  as  shown  by  a  letter  written  in  early 
summer: 

Nobody  knows,  nobody  ever  shall  know  the  half  that  I 
have  suffered  during  this  long  dark  cruel  winter.  Struggling 
alone,  against  established  business,  for  a  sure  position;  sick, 
tired,  disappointed  time  and  time  again,  almost  driven  to 
believe  at  times,  that  my  attempt  was  a  failure,  how  could  I 
write  to  any  one?  It  is  all  over  now,  thank  God,  but  it  has 
been  terrible.  But  the  prize  is  well  worth  it;  I  am  now  begin 
ning  to  see  before  me  the  realization  of  my  hopes,  the  fruits 
of  all  these  sufferings  and  struggles — a  name — position — and — 
Carrie.  Night  after  night,  I've  robbed  my  pillow  and  given 
its  time  to  my  pen,  urged  on  and  sustained  a  great  deal  by  love, 
a  great  deal  by  ambition. 

Always  keenly  observant,  but  with  little  opportunity 
to  have  acquired  sufficient  knowledge  to  dare  to  offer 
critical  opinion,  it  is  somewhat  surprising  that  he  should 
90 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

have  written,  in  less  than  six  months  after  he  reached 
New  York,  the  following  review: 

The  National  Academy  of  Design  is  now  thrown  open  to 
the  public,  on  its  44th  annual  exhibition.  The  academy  build 
ing  itself,  situated  on  Twenty-third  Street,  opposite  the  magnif 
icent  new  building  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
attracts  the  eye  by  the  singularity  of  its  architecture,  being 
modelled  after  a  building  on  the  Rialto,  in  Venice.  The  attend 
ance  at  the  exhibition  this  year  has  not  been  so  large  as  formerly, 
and  the  public  have  been  grievously  disappointed  at  the  dis 
play  of  paintings,  and  the  art  critics,  outside  artists  and  con 
noisseurs  have  handled  the  academy  artists  without  gloves, 
and  abused  the  pictures  in  all  the  ferocious  terms  of  which  art 
will  admit.  New  York  artists  are  always  wrangling  about 
something.  Recently  the  bone  of  contention  has  been  studios. 
When  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  building  is  completed,  these  knights  of 
the  palette  and  easel  will  have  new  haunts,  as  there  will  be 
some  twenty  excellent  studios  in  that  edifice. 

Of  course,  at  these  exhibitions  there  will  always  be  jealousies 
and  bickerings  and  discontent,  and  in  this  case,  as  usual,  the 
best  places  in  the  rooms  are  appropriated  to  some  very  "  wood- 
eny"  productions  of  the  academicians,  while  some  really 
excellent  paintings  of  other  artists  are  consigned  to  the  corridor, 
where  no  artist  likes  to  see  his  pictures  hanging.  Aside  from 
this  mismanagement,  which  is  palpable  to  every  one,  the  dis 
play  of  paintings  is  highly  creditable  to  American  art. 

There  is  but  little  promise,  in  the  paintings  now  on  exhi 
bition  at  the  academy,  of  many  future  Raphaels  or  Claudes  or 
Turners,  and  only  once  in  a  while,  as  you  pass  through  the 
building,  are  you  attracted  very  strikingly  by  any  picture. 
Kensett  has  a  very  beautiful  picture  here,  "Lake  George";  a 
fine  sense  of  beauty  glows  throughout  the  painting,  which  is 
pure  Raphael  in  its  delicacy  of  detail  and  exquisite  finish,  and 
is  in  delightful  contrast  with  many  subjects  around  it,  whose 
colors  are  opaque  and  muddy,  and  the  drawing  stiff  and  unnat 
ural.  Durand,  long  president  of  the  academy,  whose  name  is 
in  high  honor  by  American  artists,  gives  this  exhibition  his 
farewell  productions.  A  new  and  younger  class  of  artists  have 
rather  been  crowding  in  between  him  and  the  public  favor,  for 

91 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Durand  once  painted  for  the  love  of  art,  and  now  he  does  so 
for  money,  and  gold  is  a  wretched  substitute  for  an  enthusiastic 
devotion  to  art.  His  "Trysting  Tree"  is  marked  by  his  usual 
truthfulness  of  conception  and  beauty  of  execution.  Eliza 
Greatorex,  very  recently  elected  as  associate  of  the  academy, 
has  some  pen  and  ink  sketches,  finely  executed,  but  of  no 
striking  beauty. 

"Gettysburg,"  in  the  sculpture  room,  is  like  all  battle 
pieces,  and  will  answer  just  as  well  for  any  other  "burg".  A 
General  (Meade,  I  believe)  and  staff  loom  up  beside  a  medicine 
wagon,  and  the  usual  number  of  wounded  men  are  reclining 
in  picturesque  attitudes,  looking  very  interesting  in  their  neatly 
fitting  uniforms  and  bandaged  heads,  as  I  never  saw  wounded 
men  look,  and  a  little  further  on  some  others  are  supporting 
themselves  on  their  elbows,  and  while  a  charging  regiment 
tramples  over  them,  and  their  life  blood  gushes  out,  are  waving 
their  hats,  and,  I  doubt  not,  in  the  poetic  conception  of  the 
artist,  shouting  "All  hail  to  the  stars  and  stripes!" 

Many  a  wounded  soldier,  loyal  and  brave,  have  I  heard 
swear  like  a  pirate  while  he  struggled  to  get  out  of  the  way, 
but  never  a  one  did  I  know  who  lay  still  and  said  "All  hail, 
etc.",  or  make  any  other  such  ill-timed  remarks.  Ritchie's 
" Deathbed  of  Lincoln"  falls  far  below  this  artist's  other  efforts. 
The  subject,  an  unpleasant  one  in  itself,  is  treated  without  any 
refinement. 

I  lingered  long  before  "Early  Grief"  by  Constant  Mayer. 
A  poor  girl  in  mourning  over  a  dead  bird,  the  conception  is 
beautiful  and  the  execution  perfect.  It  hardly  seems  like  a 
work  of  art.  You  look  at  the  grieving  child,  her  sorrows  made 
all  the  more  touching  by  her  poor  dress,  and  picturesque  by 
the  woodland  scenes  around  her,  and  you  almost  expect  to  see 
the  little  lips  grieve,  and  the  mournful  eyes  in  their  tearful 
beauty,  lift  to  yours.  The  empty  wicker  cage  is  touchingly 
suggestive,  and  beside  it  lies  the  body  of  the  silent  songster, 
the  sole  joy  and  pet  of  the  little  grief-stricken  figure  mourning 
over  it.  There  is  a  world  of  pathos  in  the  face  of  the  girl, 
wearing  that  expression  of  pent-up  grief  just  ready  to  break 
forth  in  sobs.  The  sentiment  of  the  painting  is  in  perfect 
keeping  with  its  execution,  and  the  picture  well  displays  that 
rare  faculty  which  Constant  Mayer  possesses  of  infusing  a 
charming  poetry  into  his  pictures. 
92 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

In  chilling  contrast  with  this  gem,  you  pause  before  a 
"Portrait  of  a  Gentleman",  without  some  dozen  or  so  of  which 
no  gallery  is  complete.  A  stupid,  unmeaning  face,  with  nothing 
of  expression  of  beauty  in  the  face,  and  altogether  would  look 
well  in  the  dark,  or  on  a  tavern  sign.  Then  there  is  a  sea  scene. 
A  large  cast  iron,  bottle-green  breaker  is  coming  in,  or  rather 
has  been  coming  in,  but  has  stopped,  the  top  is  curved  over 
with  beautiful  precision,  and  in  one  place  where  it  breaks 
against  two  well  developed  three-cornered  rocks  the  dashing 
spray  looks  like  the  terrific  explosion  of  a  barrel  of  flour.  This 
study  would  make  an  excellent  design  for  a  fire  board,  if  it  is 
in  the  N.  A.  D. 

Beard's  "Raining  cats  and  dogs"  is  funny  and  I  like  it, 
although  it  is  rank  heresy  to  say  so,  for  it  is  condemned  by  the 
art  critics  as  unworthy  such  an  artist.  Its  drawing  and  com 
position  are  good,  but  the  subject  is  beneath  the  notice  of  art, 
they  say.  The  painting  is  an  illustration  of  the  old  expression 
which  is  given  as  its  title.  A  pelting  storm  of  savage  dogs  and 
felines  is  coming  down  in  a  way  that  is  a  caution  to  "umberills". 
Here  a  hapless  tabby  is  squelched  by  falling  a  la  spread  eagle, 
there  two  savage  dogs  have  touched  terra  firma  in  safety,  and 
fallen  upon  each  other's  necks  and  things  in  fierce  combat; 
then  a  ferocious  Thomas  feline,  with  swollen  narrative  and 
indignant  fur,  approaches  a  second  T.  F.,  who  is  somewhat 
discomposed  by  his  trip  from  the  clouds,  and  timidly  declines 
the  first  T.  F.'s  belligerent  overtures.  The  background  is  filled 
in  with  indiscriminate  dog  fights,  and  the  air  is  dark  with  falling, 
howling,  fighting  cani-felinity.  (How  is  that?)  But  the  critics 
condemn  the  subject  because  it  is  unworthy  of  the  genius  of 
Beard,  and  by  the  same  reason  they  outlaw  his  "There  was 
an  old  woman  who  lived  in  a  shoe",  the  funniest  picture  in 
the  world.  It's  indescribable.  The  big  shoe,  lying  under  the 
hill,  the  colony  of  children  scattered  over  the  foreground,  in 
all  the  phases  of  devilment  and  mischief  that  children  can  get 
into,  the  old  woman  issuing  forth  to  administer  the  well-known 
broth  and  castigation.  Oh,  who  that  ever  was  a  child  and 
revelled  in  the  beauties  of  "Mother  Goose  Melodies"  but 
would  like  this  picture? 

I  admire  an  artist  who  dares  paint  for  the  people,  just  as 
I  admire  musicians  who  dare  sing  and  play  for  the  people. 

93 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Rossini  and  "Claribel"  are  dead.  The  world  had  to  stand  still 
a  little  while  when  the  great  maestro  died,  and  a  London  musi 
cal  journal  gives  half  a  column  of  sneers  at  "Claribel",  but  for 
all  these  sneers,  how  much  of  "Claribel's"  music  will  reach 
hearts  that  Rossini's  will  never  touch.  I  would  rather  laugh 
all  day  over  Beard's  "  Old  Woman,  etc."  than  wander  among 
twenty  academies  filled  with  these  tiresome  high  art  landscapes, 
with  their  monotony  of  green  meadows  and  blue  mountains 
and  gray  rocks,  with  here  and  there  an  impossible  cow,  and 
everywhere  the  inevitable  man  with  the  red  shirt  and  the  fish 
ing  pole.  And  if  a  highly  cultivated,  correct  taste  leads  us  to 
prefer  the  thunder  and  crash,  and  roar,  and  operatic  dissonance 
of  the  "peace  jubilee"  to  the  simple,  charming  melodies  we 
have  listened  to  in  the  home  circle,  then  I  desire  that  my  taste 
should  ever  be  vicious  and  ungraded.  It  is  amusing  to  listen 
to  a  knot  of  art  critics  and  connoisseurs  tear  a  picture  to  pieces. 
They  are  not  artists  themselves,  couldn't  whitewash  a  fence, 
much  less  paint  a  landscape,  but  they  are  well  up  in  the  rules 
of  art,  and  very  few  pictures  escape  their  ravages.  It  is  cus 
tomary  to  first  pronounce  the  painting  a  daub,  on  general 
principles;  then  the  drawing  is  hard,  stiff,  poor,  the  coloring 
is  weak,  wretched  in  fact,  the  perspective  is  faulty,  the  whole 
thing  is  decidedly  "woodeny".  The  composition  is  attacked, 
and  you  often  learn  that  a  picture  which  had  struck  you  as  a 
fine  painting,  is  only  a  mass  of  inaccuracies  and  violations  of 
beauty  and  harmony,  unfit  for  a  political  transparency.  "Ars 
probat  artificem." 

In  September,  1869,  he  wrote  to  his  aunt  from  "217 
West  17th  Street,  New  York  City  ",  which  he  designated 
as  "the  home  of  the  friendless  and  the  friend  of  the 
homeless  street",  saying  he  was  still  studying  at  Cooper 
Institute,  taking  "French,  German  and  Art",  and 
intended  to  go  to  Europe  the  following  spring  with 
prospects  as  occasional  reporter  on  New  York  papers. 
This  letter,  written  partially  in  rhyme,  and  filled  with 
outrageous  punning,  admitted  that  financial  necessities 
were  very  great.  It  was  not  difficult,  under  such 
94 


FINDING  HIMSELF 

circumstances,  to  throw  down  the  pencil  and  brush, 
and  follow  off  on  an  expedition  of  which  he  later  wrote: 

I  was  an  Art  student  in  New  York,  ambitious  and  dreaming 
of  the  day  when  I  should  paint  a  historical  painting  of  the 
scenes  of  blood  and  carnage  that  I  had  witnessed  during  the 
war.  It  gradually  dawned  on  me  I  was  going  to  do  a  splendid 
imitation  of  "The  Dying  Skeleton"  first.  Just  then  I  had  a 
chance  to  go  to  Cuba  in  the  ten  year  war.  Went  on  the  Lillian; 
she  was  a  British  ship,  or  used  to  be.  Was  what  the  sailors 
call  a  "  Pickpocket ",  very  swift,  but  burning  so  much  coal  and  oil 
that  she  ate  up  all  of  the  profits  of  an  honest  voyage.  She  was 
a  dandy  blockade  runner,  however,  and  dodged  in  and  out  of 
the  Southern  ports  during  our  Civil  War,  so  she  was  just  the 
craft  for  a  filibustering  expedition.  We  had  to  land  some  arms 
one  dark  night.  Now  don't  tell  me  Spaniards  can't  shoot. 
They  shot  me  that  night  the  first  time  they  fired;  in  the  dark 
too,  and  I  was  the  smallest  man  on  the  boat.  I  was  sent  back 
to  Savannah,  went  into  the  hospital,  and  had  my  cracked 
plating  repaired. 

Returning  to  New  York,  physically  out  of  condition 
and  disspirited,  a  most  welcome  letter  was  soon  received 
from  Enoch  Emery,  the  editor  of  the  Peoria  Transcript, 
asking  him  to  return  and  take  a  position  on  the  paper. 
He  counted  his  cash  and  found  he  had  just  enough  for 
a  ticket,  and  leaving  his  drawing  board,  crayons  and 
books  where  he  last  used  them  at  Cooper  Institute,  he 
packed  his  few  personal  belongings  and  taking  a  little 
three  dollar  wooden  clock  under  his  arm,  he  abandoned 
the  brush  for  the  pen  and  started  back  to  Peoria.  That 
little  clock  was  one  of  his  valued  possessions  all  his  life, 
and  stands  today  above  a  book  case  in  his  study  in 
Sunnycrest,  where  it  still  ticked  as  the  heart  of  its 
possessor  ceased  to  beat  in  response,  and  goes  on 
marking  time  here  while  he  has  entered  upon  an 
eternity  of  time  unmarked  by  day  or  night. 

95 


CHAPTER  IV 

NEWSPAPER  CAREER 

THIS  transition  from  self-expression  by  brush 
to  self-expression  by  pen,  he  referred  to  when 
the  Transcript  had  become  the  Herald  Tran- 
script,  and  was  celebrating  a  golden  jubilee, 
and  he  wrote  of  his  work: 

My  first  appearance  in  cold  type  was  in  the  columns  of 
the  Transcript.  The  article  was  a  letter  I  wrote  to  my  father 
from  the  army  when  I  was  a  soldier  in  the  47th  Illinois.  It 
appeared  some  time,  I  think,  in  1862  or  '63.  Then  afterwards 
I  entered  the  world  of  journalism  by  the  same  path.  I  will 
never  forget  my  first  night  on  the  Transcript.  I  was  telegraph 
editor,  and  "Phocian"  Howard,  then  on  the  editorial  staff, 
under  the  Emerys,  sat  down  at  my  desk  and  wrote  down  for 
me  on  a  slip  of  paper  the  proof  marks  I  was  to  use.  I  have 
done  some  newspaper  and  literary  work  since  that  night,  but 
nothing  that  has  ever  puffed  me  up  with  wicked  and  vaunting 
pride;  nothing  that  has  looked  so  clear  and  strong  and  illumi 
nating  in  type,  as  the  "the's"  and  "and's"  I  inserted  in  the 
night  despatches,  and  the  thrilling  scare  heads  I  wrote  over 
the  most  commonplace  paragraphs. 

I  do  not  know  what  the  world  of  critics  thought,  or  may 
think,  of  my  work  in  that  edition  of  the  Transcript,  but  it  was 
what  I  called  "Literature". 

The  proof  marks  referred  to  were  preserved  for 
thirty-five  years,  the  original  piece  of  paper,  4x5  inches, 
being  pasted  in  a  scrap  book. 

Another  interview  ran: 

The  Transcript  is  my  newspaper  Alma  Mater.  I  began  in 
telegraph  flimsy  on  this  palladium  of  liberty  in  1869.  Enoch 
Emery  was  the  proprietor  and  editor.  John  Emery  was  second 
in  command;  George  Kent  was  city  editor;  Sam  Patton  was 
96 


NEWSPAPER  CAREER 

foreman;  George  Keady  held  the  "ad"  case,  and  I — well,  I 
hate  to  say  it,  but  I  ran  the  paper,  at  least  I  thought  I  did, 
which  was  the  same  thing. 

Soon  after  beginning  the  reportorial  work,  he  was 
sent  out  for  an  interview,  of  which  he  often  spoke  in  the 
later  years,  when  he  himself  was  a  lecturer  and  being 
interviewed  by  some  abashed  reporter: 

Back  in  1870  I  was  a  "new  man"  on  the  Peoria  Transcript 
and  just  about  the  hour  that  I  became  an  employe  of  the 
paper,  Horace  Greeley  arrived  in  Peoria.  I  was  assigned  to 
the  Greeley  story  by  the  city  editor  and  started  out  to  inter 
view  him. 

After  I  had  sent  my  card  up  to  Mr.  Greeley,  I  began  to 
wish  I  had  it  back.  I  hoped  that  he  would  not  be  in  his  room 
and  that,  if  he  was,  he  would  refuse  to  see  me.  He  was  in  his 
room  and  he  did  not  refuse  to  see  me.  Then,  how  scared  I  was. 

I  knocked  on  the  door  and  Mr.  Greeley  called  out: 

"Come  in." 

I  went  in  and  was  so  badly  frightened  that  I  could  not 
think  what  to  talk  about,  but  finally,  I  ventured : 

"You  have  been  lecturing,  have  you  not,  Mr.  Greeley?" 

Answer— "Yes." 

Then  it  was  so  quiet  that  you  could  have  heard  the  microbes 
gnaw  if  there  had  been  a  smallpox  patient  around. 

I  sat  there  for  a  minute  or  two  and  was  getting  more  fright 
ened  every  minute.  At  last  I  thought  of  another  question. 

"Have  your  lectures  been  successful,  Mr.  Greeley?" 

"Young  man,"  he  replied,  "do  you  know  what  a  successful 
lecture  is?" 

I  didn't  know  and  I  owned  up  that  I  didn't.  Then  Mr. 
Greeley  explained  that  a  successful  lecture  is  one  where  more 
people  stay  in  than  go  out.  He  wound  up  by  telling  me  that 
his  lectures  had  been  "successful". 

The  dominant  influence  of  this  period  of  his  life  was 
the  "  Carrie  "  referred  to  in  one  of  his  New  York  letters 
and  for  whom  love  and  ambition  had  spurred  him  on. 
Carrie  S.  Garrett  was  born  in  Peoria  December  5, 1847, 

,7  97 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  came  of  a  stock  as  sturdy  and  active  as  that  of 
young  Burdette.  Her  father,  Auren  Garrett,  as  a  boy 
came  to  Peoria  with  his  father,  Col.  Augustus  0.  Gar 
rett,  who  placed  his  family  and  goods  on  a  schooner 
bound  from  Buffalo  to  the  then  trading  post  at  Chicago, 
arriving  in  August,  1833.  They  found  a  marshy  place 
with  some  scattered  log  huts,  a  few  white  people  and 
native  Indian  tribes.  Inducements  were  offered  them 
to  locate  there,  but  they  preferred  Peoria,  which  at  this 
time  was  a  thriving  western  village. 

Garrett  the  elder  was  an  experienced  man  of  affairs, 
of  fine  appearance,  and  he  established  and  operated  the 
Peoria  Hotel,  the  first  hotel  in  Peoria.  Here  was  organ 
ized  the  first  church  of  Peoria,  St.  Jude's,  and  the  first 
Masonic  Lodge,  with  the  elder  Garrett  as  vestryman  of 
one  and  officer  of  the  other.  In  1840  Col.  Garrett 
opened  a  new  hotel,  the  Planter  House,  the  largest  and 
best  hotel  in  the  State  and  the  scene  of  the  early  social 
and  political  life  of  Peoria.  Here  Martin  Van  Buren 
was  entertained  on  his  memorable  visit  in  1842,  and 
Lincoln  and  other  noted  men  of  the  time  were  frequent 
guests  and  familiar  acquaintances  of  the  family. 

Auren  Garrett,  Mr.  Burdette's  future  father-in-law, 
inherited  his  father's  courage  and  adventurous  spirit, 
for  in  1835  he  accompanied  a  party  of  United  States 
troops  removing  the  Pottawatomie  Indians  to  the  then 
far  West,  two  hundred  miles  beyond  Council  Bluffs. 
On  the  return  trip  the  party  saw  no  white  man  between 
Fort  Leavenworth  and  Rock  Island.  At  that  time 
Davenport,  for  whom  the  city  of  Davenport,  Iowa,  took 
its  name,  was  running  the  ferry  between  Rock  Island 
and  the  Iowa  shore,  and  was  the  only  white  man  then 
living  on  the  site  of  the  present  prosperous  city. 

Miss  Garrett  was  married  to  Mr.  Burdette  on 
March  4,  1870,  when  she  was  an  invalid,  and  so  feeble 

98 


NEWSPAPER   CAREER 

that  her  responses  could  only  be  made  by  a  slight 
movement  of  the  eye  and  a  pressure  of  the  hand.  She 
later  rallied  somewhat,  but  always  remained  an  invalid. 
A  sister,  Medorah  Garrett,  who  was  her  constant 
attendant  at  this  time,  went  with  them  to  their  new 
home,  and  remained  a  devoted  member  of  the  family 
until  her  own  death  in  1910. 

Carrie  Garrett  was  a  young  woman  possessed  of 
rare  qualities  of  mind  and  character,  strength  and 
sweetness.  Two  pen  pictures  her  husband  sketched  of 
her  years  after  her  sufferings  had  ceased,  and  his 
tender  memory  visualizes  her  thus: 

There  stands  by  my  side  a  girlish  figure,  slender,  delicate, 
an  oval  face,  with  lips  most  daintily  graven  by  Nature's  tender- 
est  caresses;  eyes  of  brown,  clear,  tender,  loving,  joyous;  in 
silken  waves  the  dark  hair  falls  away  from  the  brow  of  snow. 
Hands  of  a  child  rest  on  my  arms.  She  stands  there — a  picture 
of  morning.  Hope  shines  in  her  radiant  eyes.  Faith  sings  in 
the  intonations  of  her  voice.  Such  courage  burns  in  the  heart 
of  her;  such  lofty  inspiration  throbs  in  her  soul,  as  not  even 
her  lover  could  have  dreamed  in  that  summer  time  when  all 
our  days  were  made  of  gold  and  our  nights  of  silver.  It  is 
my  sweetheart. 

The  small,  one-story  brick  house  in  which  Mr. 
Burdette  and  his  bride  began  housekeeping  was  built 
by  Auren  Garrett  in  1846  at  the  foot  of  the  bluff  fronting 
on  Perry  Avenue,  and  was  given  by  him  to  the  young 
people  at  the  time  of  their  marriage. 

This  home,  which  was  founded  on  love  alone, 
brought  insistent  demands  upon  him,  providing  for 
its  maintenance,  straining  every  energy  he  possessed 
in  newspaper  activity.  The  continued  suffering  tore 
at  his  heart-strings,  but  his  sympathy  and  love  and 
tender  care  of  wife  so  appealed  to  the  public,  which 
was  growing  to  be  his  personal  friend,  that  it  honored 

99 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

him  for  this  unusual  demonstration  of  unstinted  devo 
tion  and  abandon  of  unselfishness  which  was  always  to 
remain  one  of  the  high  lights  of  his  character.  She,  in 
turn,  gave  him  the  inspiration  and  steadying  influence 
his  brilliant  talents  and  unrestrained  nature  needed. 

During  the  year  on  the  Transcript  he  had  become 
the  city  editor,  and  his  humor  more  and  more  crept 
into  the  local  page.  One  day  he  was  sent  for  by  the 
editor,  who  sought  to  sternly  repress  him: 

"Sit  down,  Mr.  Burdette,"  said  Mr.  Emery.  "I 
understand  that  only  one  of  the  two  lunatics  that  got 
away  from  the  crazy  house  last  week  has  been  recap 
tured.  What  has  become  of  the  other?  " 

"Why — why — '  stammered  the  local  editor. 
"Why,  I  haven't  any  idea,  Mr.  Emery.  How  should 
IT" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  responded  the  chief.  "I 
thought  possibly  he  might  be  secreted  somewhere 
about  this  building  and  that  you  might  know  about 
him." 

"I  haven't  any  knowledge  of  him  at  all,"  said  the 
puzzled  Burdette. 

"Then  it  must  have  been  that  drunken  man  I  met 
going  down  the  stairs  last  night,"  continued  Emery, 
"or  possibly  you  have  some  friend  with  a  feeble  mind 
who  gets  into  this  office  with  false  keys.  Anyway, 
somebody  has  been  giving  a  lot  of  infernal  drivel  to 
the  foreman  lately,  and  it's  been  printed  on  your  page. 
I  wouldn't  insult  your  intelligence,  Bob,  by  assuming 
that  it  got  in  with  your  knowledge,  but  you  must  have 
been  mighty  heedless  of  late  and  you  really  must  be 
more  careful  in  the  future.  Seriously,"  he  continued 
in  a  meant- to-be-not-unkindly  tone,  "you  should  not 
try  to  write  humor.  When  I  want  anything  funny  in 
the  paper  I'll  write  it  myself." 

100 


NEWSPAPER   CAREER 

He  bade  me  learn  to  walk  before  I  tried  to  prance,  but  it 
was  so  much  more  fun  to  prance,  so  I  went  over  on  an  after 
noon  paper  called  the  Review,  and  kept  on  prancing. 

His  passing  from  the  Transcript  to  the  Peoria  Review 
gave  him  a  field  of  humorous  writing  that  he  had  not 
before  enjoyed,  but  the  freedom  of  pen  was  not  without 
limitation,  for  the  original  Peoria  Review  suspended, 
and  the  material  was  sold  to  the  proprietors  of  the 
Transcript  and  Democrat.  It  did  not,  however,  stay 
suspended  long,  for  a  number  of  the  employees  con 
nected  with  the  old  paper  started  a  small  daily  with  the 
same  name.  An  injunction  was  obtained  preventing 
the  use  of  the  name  "Review,"  and  for  a  while  the  new 
paper  was  published  as  The  Peoria  Evening  Injunction. 

"Bob  says  they  will  publish  the  paper  if  they  have 
to  change  the  name  fifty  times  a  day/'  was  the  welcome 
the  Illinois  Sentinel  gave  it.  The  injunction,  however, 
was  finally  dissolved  and  the  Review  had  a  precarious 
career  for  a  few  years,  finally  dying  a  slow  death  by 
starvation. 

Mr.  Burdette  was  one  of  those  concerned  with  the 
founding  of  the  new  Review,  and  its  columns  reflected 
the  liveliness  of  his  humorous  imagination.  Crude  and 
bald  were  many  of  his  humorous  sketches,  and  yet  they 
indicated  the  versatility  of  his  fancy,  and  gave  the 
promise  which  was  afterwards  fulfilled  when  he  went 
to  the  Hawk-Eye.  "Lively  as  a  cricket"  was  the  com 
ment  of  one  of  its  contemporaries,  as  to  the  new  paper, 
and  even  so  conservative  a  paper  as  the  Springfield, 
Massachusetts,  Republican,  noted  at  once  its  individ 
uality  and  the  genius  of  the  youthful  Burdette,  and 
warned  the  "Danbury  news  man"  to  look  to  his  laurels. 
One  of  his  daring  contributions  he  tells  of  himself: 

When  I  was  younger  than  I  now  am  by  15  years,  I  was 
writing  up  immortal  dog  fights  and  fadeless  "river  news",  and 

101 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

undying  "real  estate  transfers",  and  soul-inspiring  "proceed 
ings  of  the  city  council"  on  the  Peoria  Review.  Among  many 
valuable  contributors,  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the 
State  of  Illinois  used  to  write  for  that  very  able  and  influential 
journal. 

There  was  one  young  man  who  weighed  about  as  many 
years  as  myself,  against  whom  I  conceived  a  violent  hatred. 
Not  a  personal  spite,  oh,  no;  but  he  used  to  steal  poetry  and 
use  the  paper  as  a  "fence".  He  would  deliberately  copy 
something  from  Burns,  or  Byron,  or  Tennyson  and  write  above 
it  "By  J.  Watson  Wallingford",  and  in  it  would  go,  fourth  page, 
leaded. 

He  was  in  favor  with  the  management,  somehow,  and 
being  a  subaltern,  I  was  restrained  from  sitting  down  upon  him. 
I  wanted  to,  but  I  "dassent".  I  had  a  very  large  salary — to 
get — on  that  journal,  and  did  not  propose  to  quarrel  with  my 
bread — there  was  no  butter — by  outspoken  revolt. 

But  one  day,  all  the  great  and  wise  men  on  the  paper  went 
down  to  Galesburg  to  a  district  convention,  and  J.  Watson 
Wallingtord  came  in  with  "A  Song — by  J.  Watson  Walling 
ford  ",  and  a  little  note  from  the  manager  ordering  it  in  fourth 
page,  lead,  that  day.  I  read  the  stanzas  after  the  poet  went 
away.  The  poem  was  one  of  Byron's  "Stanzas  for  Music", 
so  I  couldn't  complain  about  the  poetry,  but  I  couldn't  just 
see  why  Wallingford  should  call  it  "A  Song". 

I  will  admit  right  here  that  I  do  not  read  music  at  sight; 
I  can't  even  read  a  grace  note  at  ten  days'  sight.  I  do  not  know 
much  about  music.  I  can  play  on  the  kazoo  a  little  when  the 
tune  is  easy.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  for  "  A  Song  "  that  poem 
looked  kind  of  bare  and  friendless.  There  was  nothing  to 
indicate  that  it  was  a  song,  except  the  title,  and  the  title  of  a 
poem  or  the  text  of  a  sermon  does  not  necessarily  indicate  the 
subject  treated  in  the  discourse.  If  it  was  "A  Song"  it  was 
doubtless  intended  to  be  sung,  and  how  could  people  sing  it 
unless  the  tune  was  indicated? 

Suppose  each  one  of  our  readers,  on  receiving  a  copy  of  the 
Review  containing  that  song,  should  attempt  to  sing  it  to  some 
tune  of  his  own?  What  discord  would  ensue !  As  a  Journalist 
with  a  large  J.  I  could  not  cast  such  a  brand  of  discord  upon 
the  country.  I  was  determined,  if  that  "Song"  went  in  the 
102 


NEWSPAPER  CAREER 

paper  as  a  "Song",  that  it  should  at  least  be  sung  in  harmony 
by  our  readers  and  I  would  be  the  "precentor"  myself. 

I  pondered  over  those  stanzas  for  a  long  time,  until  at 
length  I  hit  upon  a  jingle  that  seemed  to  fit.  I  carefully  locked 
the  sanctum  door  to  keep  the  printers  from  getting  at  me  and 
slaying  me,  and  sang  the  "Song"  clear  through.  Then  I 
wrote  a  little  editorial  paragraph  calling  attention  to  it,  and 
predicting  that  it  would  become  the  most  popular  campaign 
song  of  the  century,  and,  when  the  paper  came  out  that  after 
noon,  J.  Watson  Wallingford  and  his  friends  were  pleased,  I 
think,  to  see  his  poem  in  this  fair  guise: 

A  SONG 

BY  J.  WATSON  WALLINGFORD 
(Tune— "Vilikins  and  His  Dinah") 

I  speak  not,  I  trace  not,  I  breathe  not  thy  name, 
There  is  grief  in  the  sound,  there  is  guilt  in  thy  fame; 
But  the  tear  which  now  burns  on  my  cheek  may  impart 
The  deep  thoughts  that  dwell  in  that  silence  of  heart. 

With  my  tu-ri-li,  u-ri-li,  u-ri-li — a, 

Singing  tu  ri  li,  u  ri  li,  u  ri  li  -  a; 
etc.,  etc. 

And  so  on  through  the  five  stanzas  of  the  well-known  poem. 
It  did  look  too  pretty  in  print  for  anything.  I  went  out  in  the 
news  room  and  the  printers,  each  holding  a  copy  of  the  paper 
in  his  hands,  stood  up  and  sang  it.  The  effect  was  thrilling. 

But  the  music  didn't  fairly  begin  until  that  night,  after 
the  edition  was  all  worked  off  and  the  mails  were  gone,  and 
"the  management"  returned  from  the  convention.  Music  in 
the  air!  There  was  English  opera  for  you.  The  poor  poet 
cried.  The  editor-in-chief  wanted  to  laugh,  but  couldn't, 
because  the  directors  were  mad.  Everybody  talked  at  once 
and  abused  me,  although  I  contended  that  my  act  was  a  musical 
inspiration  that  saved  the  "Song"  from  derision.  I  claimed 
that  the  "Song"  was  incomplete  without  a  tune  and  a  refrain. 

You  see  Peoria  is  Emma  Abbott's  native  town,  and  every 
thing  of  a  musical  character  there  is  very  severely  criticised, 
and  I  said  I  wanted  to  maintain  the  credit  of  the  town.  No 
good;  the  poet  only  cried  harder,  said  he  was  disgraced  for- 

103 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

ever,  and  the  directors  all  agreed  with  him,  and  none  of  them, 
in  the  supreme  selfishness  of  their  grief,  ever  thought  how 
Byron  would  like  it. 

At  one  time  I  half  wished  I  had  allowed  the  "Song"  to 
go  in  the  incomplete,  ragged  state  in  which  it  came  to  my  hands. 
But  then  I  reflected  that  I  had  only  done  my  duty  as  a  journal 
ist,  and  if  necessary  I  was  ready  to  go  to  the  steak  for  it;  rare 
and  no  gravy.  Finally,  matters  were  adjusted.  I  was  per 
mitted  to  retain  my  position  on  the  editorial  staff  of  the  paper 
on  condition  that  I  publish  a  personal  apology  to  J.  Watson 
Wallingford.  To  this  I  agreed. 

I  wrote  the  apology  the  next  day  and  sent  it  to  the  com 
posing  room.  But  when  it  came  up  in  proof,  J.  Watson  Walling 
ford  was  sent  for.  He  and  the  manager  and  two  directors  read 
it,  and  held  a  brief  consultation  over  it,  to  which  council  I  was 
not  invited,  but  the  foreman  told  me  that  it  came  back  marked 
"dead".  It  never  was  published.  I  don't  know  what  was 
wrong  with  it.  I  had  labored  over  it  a  long  time,  and  thought 
it  was  as  good  an  apology  as  I  had  ever  seen  go  out  of  the  shops. 
I  went  down  stairs  and  asked  the  pressman  if  he  knew  what 
was  the  trouble,  and  he  said  he  thought  "she  had  slipped  an 
eccentric,  and  was  only  workin'  one  side  when  he  saw  her". 

These  months  were  full  of  excitement  and  anxiety. 

The  Review  marked  an  era  in  our  journalistic  career  which  we 
lived  to  ponder  over  with  tears.  It  was  the  only  daily  paper 
we  ever  helped  to  start.  It  precious  soon  got  the  start  of  every 
body  connected  with  it.  We  had  that  little  twilight  twinkler 
for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  year.  Then  it  had  us  the  rest  of  the 
time. 

A  Burlington  friend  afterwards  met  him  on  the 
street  and  asked  him  how  his  Peoria  paper  succeeded. 
"Did  you  make  much  money?" 

"Money!"  repeated  Burdette.  "Money!  Did 
you  ever  start  a  paper?" 

"No,  I  believe  not,"  said  the  Burlington  man. 

"Well,  you  ought  to  try  it.     I  started  one  once. 
Yes,  I  started  one.     We  called  it  the  Peoria  Review, 
and  it  was  started  to  fill  a  long-felt  want." 
104 


NEWSPAPER   CAREER 

"Did  you  have  any  partners?" 

"Yes,  Jerry  Cochrane  was  my  partner.  There  were 
several  comforting  things  about  that  paper.  For 
instance,  Jerry  and  I  always  knew  on  Monday  morn 
ing  that  we  would  never  have  money  enough  on  Sat 
urday  night  to  pay  the  hands  off,  and  we  never  had. 
The  hands  knew  it,  too,  so  they  were  never  shocked  by 
disappointment.  We  ran  that  way  for  a  while,  getting 
more  deeply  in  debt  all  the  time.  At  last  one  morning 
I  entered  the  office  and  found  Jerry  looking  rather 
solemn. 

"'Jerry/  said  I,  'you  need  another  partner/ 

"'Yes,  we  need  a  new  one/  he  rejoined. 

"'A  business  man/  said  I. 

"'One  with  executive  ability/  said  he. 

"'A  financier/  I  observed. 

"'One  who  can  take  hold  of  things  and  turn  them 
into  money/  he  concluded. 

"'Then  I  have  got  the  man  you  want/  said  I,  and 
I  introduced  him  to  Frank  Hitchcock,  the  sheriff. 
Jerry  said  Frank  was  the  man  he  had  been  looking  for, 
so  we  installed  him  at  once." 

"Was  Hitchcock  a  good  business  man?"  asked  the 
friend. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Burdette,  "everything  he  touched 
turned  into  money.  He  proved  to  be  all  we  had  antic 
ipated  and  he  ran  the  paper  with  the  greatest  success 
until  he  turned  that  into  money." 

"What  was  the  final  result?" 

"Well,  when  we  wound  up  there  was  nothing  left 
but  two  passes — one  to  Cincinnati  and  one  to  Burling 
ton.  We  divided  them  up  and  went  in  different  direc 
tions." 

Referring  to  this  same  experience  at  a  banquet  of 
newspaper  men  many  years  later,  he  said: 

105 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

There  has  somehow  gotten  into  the  mind  of  the  great 
public  which  exists  for  the  support  of  newspaper  men  and 
journalists — the  latter  crowding  the  census  by  thousands  where 
the  former  sit  solitary — that  the  newspaper  publisher  is  a  man 
of  vast  wealth,  most  of  which  is  predatory. 

There  are  exceptions.  I  was  a  newspaper  publisher  once. 
The  distinction  didn't  last  much  longer  than  Mulvaney's 
chevrons.  But  the  experience  was  wild,  thrilling,  exciting. 
Falling  down  stairs  with  a  kitchen  stove  wouldn't  have  com 
pensated  me  for  the  loss  of  it.  It  was  the  old  printer's  story 
of  "a  nonpareil  paper  in  a  bourgeois  town".  By  manufacturing 
all  the  news,  local  and  foreign,  at  the  desk,  I  saved  the  expense 
of  reporters  and  the  Associated  Press  franchise.  And  that 
with  Melville  Stone  living  at  Toulon,  only  forty  miles  away. 

And  I  always  had  news  enough  to  fill  the  paper  to  the  limit, 
which  was  the  Chase.  I — or  rather  "we" — never  permitted 
advertising  matter  to  crowd  out  the  news.  Or  anything  else. 
And  the  news  was  of  a  character  to  keep  the  hair  of  the  town 
on  end  like,  frets  upon  the  porkful  quilcupine. 

But,  alas!  a  skyrocket  isn't  a  comet.  And  even  a  comet 
isn't  a  planet.  Somehow  I  lacked  the  publisher's  instinct. 
My  paper  came  down.  I  don't  even  know  where  it  lit.  But 
I  stayed  up.  Higher  than  a  kite.  And  I've  been  up  ever  since. 
Cloudland  is  good  enough  for  me.  Oh,  I  come  down  occasion 
ally  to  buy  groceries  and  ask  a  publisher  for  my  check.  But 
I  don't  live  down  here.  I  vote  in  California.  I  look  back 
upon  my  experience  as  "editor  and  publisher"  like  unto  the 
man  who  wakes  up  in  the  morning  under  the  bed;  crawls  out 
and  sees  his  "hat  of  the  highest"  hanging  on  the  gas-burner 
with  the  jet — full  head  on — blazing  through  the  crown  thereof; 
all  the  pictures  on  the  floor  and  all  his  clothes  hanging  on  the 
picture-hooks;  windows  wide  open  and  the  snow  blowing  in; 
everything  where  nothing  should  be  and  nothing  where  any 
thing  should  be — "Gee!  what  a  glorious  time  I  must  have  had 
last  night!"  It  was  splendid  but  it  wasn't  newspaper  publish 
ing.  I  wouldn't  have  missed  it  for  a  thousand  dollars.  I  didn't. 

While  the  owners  of  the  Burlington  Hawk-Eye  had 
noted  with  increasing  interest  the  liveliness  of  the 
Review  columns,  upon  its  death  they  had  resolved  to 

106 


NEWSPAPER  CAREER 

take  young  Burdette  to  themselves,  where  he  might 
have  a  wider  field  and  freer  opportunity  for  his  humor 
ous  and  philosophical  writings.  Of  this  transition 
period  Mr.  Burdette  wrote: 

While  I  was  looking  around  for  something  to  do  I  thought 
of  the  Burlington  Hawk-Eye.  It  was  a  sober,  staid  old  paper, 
financially  solid.  I  was  young  and  active.  Thought  I,  I  can 
do  that  paper  good.  If  I  can  get  on  the  staff  I  am  sure  it  will 
do  me  good.  Well,  I  was  thinking  of  going  over  there,  when 
one  day  its  business  manager,  Mr.  Wheeler,  came  to  see  me, 
and  offered  me  a  position  as  city  editor  and  reporter.  If  I 
live  ten  thousand  years  it  will  not  be  long  enough  time  for  me 
to  be  sufficiently  thankful  that  I  accepted  the  offer,  and  besides 
that,  I  am  proud  of  the  fact  they  sent  for  me. 

His  feeling  of  gratitude  can  be  well  understood  when 
we  review  his  nearly  ten  years  of  struggle  in  an  effort 
to  find  his  place  and  in  which  he  had  made  two,  if  not 
three,  distinct  failures.  As  a  school  teacher  he  admitted 
himself  to  be  wholly  without  qualification.  His  life  in 
New  York  was  checkered  with  hope  and  despair,  and 
in  the  end  he  was  reluctantly  compelled  to  abandon  his 
dream  of  becoming  an  artist.  The  Review,  which  he 
helped  to  establish  with  much  youthful  enthusiasm, 
had  a  brief  span  of  life  and  its  collapse  forced  him  again 
to  look  for  a  position. 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  it  all,  he  brought  to 
Burlington  the  same  optimism,  the  same  irrepressible 
humor  and  the  same  determination  to  succeed  that  he 
might  have  had  had  he  never  met  with  failure  at  all. 
Indeed,  the  first  picture  we  have  of  him  at  Burlington, 
which  was  in  October,  1874,  is  that  of  the  young  man 
with  a  distinct  gift  for  story  telling  and  its  humorous 
embellishment,  making  his  acquaintances  laugh  to 
tears  with  an  account  of  the  collapse  of  the  Peoria 
Review  enterprise. 

107 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

George  S.  Jamison,  with  whom  he  spent  his  first 
Sunday  in  Burlington,  writes  entertainingly  his  remi 
niscence  of  the  humorist's  first  appearance  in  Bur 
lington: 

He  arrived  in  Burlington  on  a  Saturday  evening  in  time  to 
attend  a  performance  at  the  old  Union  Hall,  the  then  theatre 
of  the  town,  where  he  was  introduced  by  the  late  Major  Black- 
mar,  formerly  of  the  Hawk-Eye  company,  to  a  fellow  scribe. 
"Bob"  made  an  engagement  with  his  new  acquaintance  to 
meet  him  Sunday  afternoon  and  the  two  strolled  about  meeting 
a  few  others  who  joined  the  party.  They  repaired  to  the  office 
of  the  Pullman  Palace  Car  Company,  at  the  former  Union 
depot,  where  Mr.  Burdette  was  urged  to  tell  his  experiences 
running  a  newspaper  in  Peoria  without  capital.  The  recital 
proved  a  "first  night"  success,  as  the  audience  was  later  found 
in  different  stages  of  convulsions,  some  under  the  desks  of  the 
office,  some  gasping  for  more  wind  power  to  laugh  with,  others 
steadying  themselves  by  the  gas  brackets  while  they  howled  in 
incoherent  glee,  and  the  remainder  lay  limp  and  paralyzed  over 
trunks  and  other  bric-a-brac  of  the  Pullman  Company. 

From  that  Sunday  afternoon  Mr.  Burdette  was  a  marked 
man.  The  newspaper  men  took  to  him  instantaneously,  being 
attracted,  as  thousands  of  other  people  since  have  been,  by 
his  personal  magnetism,  which  he  possesses  in  so  marked  a 
degree. 

One  of  Mr.  Burdette's  associates  of  the  Hawk-Eye 
tells  the  following  story,  which  illustrates  his  abounding 
resourcefulness: 

One  night  Bob  and  his  editorial  chum,  Al  Leadley,  long 
since  gone  over  to  the  better  world,  were  lazying,  and  the  fore 
man  of  the  composing  room  descended  on  them  with  the  com 
plaint  that  it  was  eleven  P.  M.  and  he  hadn't  a  line  of  "city" 
yet.  "  That's  too  bad,"  said  Burdette;  "  just  watch  our  smoke, 
John."  And  at  one  A.  M.  the  same  foreman  came  down  on  the 
double  quick  and  yelled,  "for  Heaven's  sake  quit,  I've  got 
more  stuff  now  than  I  could  use  in  two  nights." 

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NEWSPAPER  CAREER 

Mr.  Burdette  was  assigned  to  report  a  Republican 
convention  one  afternoon.  As  the  district  was  new  to 
him,  the  late  Frank  Hatton,  the  owner  of  the  Hawk-Eye, 
went  to  the  hall  and  kept  him  posted  as  to  the  identity 
of  the  various  speakers.  A  boy  ran  to  the  Hawk-Eye 
office  with  Mr.  Burdette's  copy,  with  the  result  that 
the  Hawk-Eye  extra  greeted  the  delegates  as  they  were 
leaving  the  hall.  This  was  the  more  surprising  as  the 
Burlington  Hawk-Eye  was  such  a  staid  old  paper. 

The  Burlington  Hawk-Eye  surely  was  a  staid  old 
paper.  Established  by  James  G.  Edwards,  the  first 
number  was  published  June  6,  1839,  under  the  name 
"Iowa  Patriot."  Burlington  had  become  the  capital 
of  the  Territory  of  Iowa  and  Mr.  Edwards  had  profited 
by  a  portion  of  the  territorial  printing,  and  he  con 
cluded  to  accept  the  invitation  of  Burlington  people 
to  remove  his  plant  from  Fort  Madison  to  Burlington. 
This  was  the  embryo  of  the  Burlington  Hawk-Eye. 
In  October,  1874,  Edwards  and  Beardsley  transferred 
the  property  to  the  Hawk-Eye  Publishing  Company, 
with  Frank  Hatton  the  president  and  editor-in-chief, 
Robert  J.  Burdette,  city  and  later  managing  editor, 
Charles  Beardsley  and  J.  L.  Waite,  associate  editors. 
The  business  managers  under  Hatton's  administration 
were  successively  C.  Y.  Wheeler,  Major  H.  W.  Hall, 
John  W.  Burdette.  In  1879  Hatton  was  appointed 
postmaster  of  Burlington,  and  passed  on  to  Postmaster 
General  of  the  United  States  under  President  Arthur. 

The  clearest  account  of  his  first  connection  with  the 
Burlington  Hawk-Eye  is  given  us  by  J.  E.  Calkins,  who 
succeeded  Mr.  Burdette  as  city  editor  of  the  Hawk-Eye 
and  served  in  that  capacity  for  a  number  of  years.  He 
it  was  to  whose  desk  came  Mr.  Burdette's  letters  written 
as  "Roaming  Robert"  letters,  while  he  was  upon  the 

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ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

road  to  fill  his  platform  engagements.  The  friendship 
between  the  two  men  that  began  at  that  time  lasted 
until  the  death  of  Mr.  Burdette.  On  his  seventieth 
birthday,  Mr.  Calkins  wrote  him  a  letter  full  of  genuine 
affection  and  appreciation,  and  with  many  tender 
references  to  the  old  days  when  both  were  struggling 
upon  a  far  western  newspaper  in  what  was  little  more 
than  a  pioneer  community.  Of  the  early  Hawk-Eye 
days  Mr.  Calkins  writes: 

The  period  Mr.  Burdette  spent  in  Burlington,  Iowa,  as 
city  editor  and  special  correspondent  of  the  Burlington  Hawk- 
Eye,  was  the  period  that  directed  and  determined  his  evolution 
as  a  humorist,  and  the  period  that  brought  him  a  sufficient 
measure  of  celebrity  to  enable  him  to  launch  himself  as  a  popu 
lar  lecturer,  with  a  prosperous  voyage  to  a  golden  success. 

In  Peoria  he  had  given  a  rein  more  or  less  free  to  his  bent 
for  humor,  but  he  had  only  local  fame  as  a  funny  man.  The 
Hawk-Eye  was  in  need  of  a  city  editor;  and  the  business  man 
ager  of  that  paper  insisted  that  what  it  needed  was  a  man  with 
a  mind  and  soul  above  police  court  and  local  railroad  news, 
and  so  it  came  about  that  Mr.  Burdette,  a  young  man  then 
(for  that  was  around  forty  years  ago),  was  engaged.  He  came 
with  a  contract,  which  was  a  thing  unusual  in  those  days,  and 
by  the  terms  of  that  contract  he  had  a  sway  over  his  depart 
ment  that  was  freer  than  that  of  any  other  city  editor  in  all 
that  region. 

There  is  a  story,  pleasant  to  hear  and  possibly  true  in  some 
degree,  that  Mr.  Burdette's  drift  into  professional  humor 
followed  naturally  upon  his  efforts  to  beguile  the  tedious  hours 
of  his  young  invalid  wife.  She  was  sorely  afflicted  with  a 
prostrating  malady  that  finally  laid  her  a  helpless  cripple,  and 
her  sufferings  were  severe,  but  patiently  and  wonderfully 
endured. 

Her  husband,  the  story  goes,  endeavored  to  lighten  her 
gloomy  hours  by  bringing  home  with  him  at  noon  and  evening 
some  funny  story.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  these 
anecdotes,  personal  and  fanciful,  were  amusing;  at  any  rate 
it  is  said  that  Mrs.  Burdette  enjoyed  them,  and  at  length  began 

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NEWSPAPER  CAREER 

to  urge  him  to  print  them,  holding  that  if  they  could  make  a 
sick  wife  laugh,  they  should,  at  least,  make  the  rest  of  mankind 
smile;  and  so,  without  much  persuasion,  he  began. 

In  any  event,  when  he  came  from  Peoria  to  the  sober  old 
Hawk-Eye,  which  made  a  business  of  taking  itself  so  seriously 
that  it  was  almost  painful,  he  came  to  smile.  Mrs.  Burdette's 
illness  grew  more  and  more  serious;  the  treadmill  of  the 
"local's"  desk  was  anything  but  a  rosy  situation;  there  was 
no  vision  of  fame  or  fortune  ahead,  and  the  specter  of  consum 
ing  suffering  sat  at  his  hearth  day  and  night,  and  financial 
burdens  were  heavy,  but  still  he  smiled. 

All  that  Burlington  and  the  rest  of  the  world  knew  about 
it  was  that  Mrs.  Burdette  lived  in  the  midst  of  anguish,  and 
that  he  was  exceedingly  gentle  and  fond  and  careful  of  her, 
so  that,  for  all  her  pitiful  condition,  she  was  still  a  happy 
woman — and  that  the  city  page  of  the  Hawk-Eye  was  almost 
useless  as  a  news  letter,  but  so  unprecedentedly  interesting 
that  everybody  simply  had  to  read  it.  No  matter  what  the 
trial  at  his  home,  and  no  matter  what  great  and  momentous 
events  might  be  stirring  the  little  old  town  to  its  foundations, 
there  was  not  very  much  of  anything  on  the  local  page  of  the 
Hawk-Eye  but  Bob  Burdette's  rib-racking  nonsense.  In  all 
its  life  the  staid  old  Hawk-Eye  had  never  said  so  little  about 
the  new  houses  out  on  North  Hill,  and  the  runaways  and  plain 
drunks  down  town,  or  been  so  readable  or  so  popular. 

The  editor  of  the  Hawk-Eye  was  Dr.  Beardsley,  a  tall, 
thin  man,  gentle  and  courteous,  but  with  an  incurable  belief 
that  the  chief  end  of  a  city  editor  is  to  tell  all  the  doings  of  the 
town  and  refrain  from  all  printed  mirth  as  unseemly.  Dr. 
Beardsley  had  not  been  the  discoverer  of  Bob  Burdette,  and 
he  chafed,  and  fumed,  and  finally  exploded.  There  was  news 
enough  in  town,  but  instead  of  it  the  Hawk-Eye  was  printing 
only  nonsense! 

But  the  other  man,  in  the  business  office,  had  some  sub 
scription  figures  to  show  in  answer,  and  that  was  about  all  the 
answer  he  made,  or  needed  to  make.  If  there  was  anything 
the  old  Hawk-Eye  needed  it  was  more  subscribers  and  adver 
tisers,  and  for  once  they  were  both  headed  toward  it.  So  Dr. 
Beardsley  returned  to  the  wonted  labor  of  his  editorials,  and 
Bob  went  on  writing  and  printing  his  genial  foolery,  and  the 
business  continued  to  come,  and  all  Burlington  was  happy. 

Ill 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Did  anybody  on  West  Hill  care  that  a  $40,000  fire  was 
covered  in  a  paragraph?  Not  so  long  as  there  was  a  mirthful 
column  recounting  the  adventures  of  Middlerib.  Did  South 
Hill  miss  a  full  report  of  the  political  rally  at  South  Hill  Square? 
Not  if  Bob  had  remembered  to  adorn  a  page  with  the  latest 
adventures  of  Old  Bilderback  and  Young  Bilderback,  his  mis 
chievous  son.  Good  Doc.  Beardsley,  upstairs,  might  frown, 
and  do  even  worse,  but  the  habit  of  taking  the  Hawk-Eye 
spread,  in  a  very  contagion  of  risibility,  till  the  subscription 
list  was  dizzying,  and  business  fairly  boomed  in  the  once  quiet 
old  counting  room. 

That  trait  of  kindness  and  gentleness  with  others  must 
have  been  elemental  in  Mr.  Burdette's  makeup,  for  in  those 
days,  before  he  had  evaporated  the  enthusiasms  of  youth,  and 
learned  caution  by  all  manner  of  experience,  he  was  never 
known  to  give  offense  by  his  jokes.  His  humor  was  generally — 
not  always,  but  nearly  always — impersonal.  His  funny  stories 
were  characteristic,  but  his  characters  were  fictitious.  He 
made  a  mock  of  no  man  in  order  to  raise  a  laugh.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  the  city  pages  of  the  Hawk-Eye  of  those  days  show 
more  than  one  obituary  sketch  so  filled  with  sympathy  and 
tenderness,  and  so  fraught  with  pathos,  that  they  can  hardly 
be  read  without  moist  eyes,  though  the  ink  on  those  musty 
old  pages  has  been  dry  these  forty  years. 

There  wasn't  a  great  fund  of  material  for  a  humorist  in 
Burlington  in  those  days.  The  people  of  the  little  burg  of 
some  15,000  inhabitants  were  so  busy  trying  to  outgrow  Chicago 
and  St.  Louis  that  they  hadn't  thought  much  about  taking 
time  to  laugh  at  anything.  But  little  by  little  Bob  Burdette 
ferreted  out  unsuspected  sources  of  smiles.  An  old  cutter, 
stranded  by  some  thaw,  or  Hallowe'en  prank,  lingered,  summer 
and  winter,  by  the  side  street  on  South  Hill,  where  Mr.  Burdette 
passed  it  daily.  Others  saw  nothing  funny  about  it,  but  he 
made  "The  Red  Sleigh  on  Maple  Street"  famous  from  one  end 
of  the  land  to  the  other. 

The  town  had  wrung  from  the  Burlington  road  a  concession 
in  the  form  of  a  somewhat  large  and  expensive  viaduct  over  its 
tracks,  and  then  had  let  it  stand  there  to  rot  and  fall  down 
without  ever  a  soul  having  set  foot  upon  it,  the  city  finances 
being  unequal  to  the  strain  of  providing  approaches.  The 

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NEWSPAPER   CAREER 

Aldermen  and  the  people  of  Burlington  had  found  the  "Sixth 
Street  Bridge"  a  very  serious  and  perplexing  affair,  but  when 
Bob  Burdette  got  his  bearings  he  made  it  a  joke,  and  one  that 
echoed  far  and  wide.  An  eyesore  for  years  had  been  a  low- 
lying  city  block,  in  the  business  section.  It  was  subject  to 
overflow,  and  was  tenanted  by  two  or  three  unkempt  squatter 
families  with  a  plentiful  following  of  dogs,  geese  and  uncared- 
for  children,  and  rejoiced  in  the  singularly  befitting  name  of 
Happy  Hollow.  The  police  and  the  board  of  health  and  the 
nice  people  of  the  town  found  this  spot  a  problem  and  a  vexa 
tion,  but  it  was  a  mine  of  genuine  treasure  to  the  laughing 
Hawk-Eye  man. 

It  wasn't  news  that  Bob  Burdette  was  writing  then,  but 
something  larger  and  more  valuable.  He  was  unconsciously 
moulding  himself,  training  himself,  and  polishing  his  thoughts 
and  words  and  phrases  into  that  singularly  felicitous  perfection 
which  his  work  of  late  years  all  came  to  show.  No  other  man 
of  all  the  humorists  of  this  country,  big  and  little,  possessed 
such  grace  of  composition,  or  such  happy  conceit  of  humorous 
utterance,  and  these  free  unfettered  days  on  the  Hawk-Eye 
were  the  ones  that  began  the  substantial  moulding  and  shaping 
of  his  great  talent. 

Through  this  period  of  three  or  four  years  the  older  people 
of  Burlington  clearly  recall  two  salient  features  of  their  life. 
One  was  the  morning  watch  for  the  Hawk-Eye  carrier,  who 
was  bringing  the  latest  doings  of  Bilderback  and  Middlerib, 
and  the  other  was  the  vision  of  Mrs.  Burdette,  and  her  hus 
band's  devoted  tenderness.  They  drove  for  her  benefit,  a 
low-hung  phaeton,  drawn  by  a  gentle  pony.  Into  this  he  would 
lift  her  slight  form,  bent  and  wrenched  by  her  disease,  as  he 
would  carry  and  place  a  baby;  and  out  of  it,  at  the  end  of  the 
drive,  he  would  lift  her  again  and  carry  her  in.  They  visited 
friends  this  way,  and  they  went  to  church,  and  even  to  some 
entertainments. 

There  was  no  dramatic  pretense  about  it,  no  prudery,  and 
no  senseless  timidity;  simply  if  she  went  at  all  she  had  to  be 
carried,  and  her  husband  was  the  one  to  carry  her.  Touching 
and  pathetic  was  the  scene  whenever  it  was  enacted,  because 
it  was  so  unaffectedly  simple  and  natural.  Mrs.  Burdette  is 
still  quoted  in  Burlington  as  the  high  mark  of  a  cheerful  patience 
8  113 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  happy  helplessness,  which  all  should  emulate,  but  which 
only  a  few  of  us  can  attain,  and  her  husband  is  still  the  very 
mould  and  pattern  there  of  conjugal  devotion  and  care,  and 
with  all  these,  of  light-hearted  smiles  in  the  midst  of  stress  and 
tears. 

It  takes  something  of  a  reputation  to  endure  thus  for  forty 
years.  To  him  she  was  always  "Her  Little  Serene  Highness", 
and  there  is  nothing  in  the  language  more  moving  than  his  bit 
of  verse  after  her  death;  long  enough  after  to  dull  the  sting 
and  ache  of  the  parting  and  intensify  the  loneliness. 

The  Hawk-Eye  came  to  be  read  not  only  within  the  limits 
of  Burlington  and  Iowa  as  in  the  past,  but  had  its  circle  of 
readers  in  practically  every  state  in  the  Union.  Its  circulation 
increased  remarkably,  and  the  outside  circulation  was  due 
largely  to  Mr.  Burdette's  columns.  He  came  to  be  known  as 
the  "Hawk-Eye  man".  His  work  included  crisp  paragraphs 
touching  upon  politics  and  public  life,  each  with  its  own  pecul 
iar  and  whimsical  coloring;  domestic  sketches  in  which  exag 
geration  formed  the  motive,  and  editorial  articles  which  he 
wrote  in  a  serious  and  altogether  logical  vein,  and  the  Hawk- 
Eye  became  not  only  a  source  of  pleasure  for  its  humorous 
qualities,  but  a  source  of  real  power  in  Iowa  politics.  Ardently 
Republican  himself,  and  bringing  with  him  from  his  war 
experience  his  belief  in  the  infallibility  of  Republican  policy 
and  principles,  it  was  a  genuine  delight  to  him  to  enunciate 
that  clearly  and  forcefully  through  the  columns  of  the 
Hawk-Eye. 

Then  came  the  plunge  into  the  public  eye  in  the  role  of 
lecturer,  following  these  years  of  preliminary  newspaper  work. 
Telling  about  it  afterward,  he  used  to  smile  reminiscently  over 
the  audience  of  compassionate  reporters,  and  more  or  less 
uncomprehending  ushers  and  janitors,  who  alone  attended  his 
maiden  lecture,  "The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Mustache,"  for  it 
chanced  that  the  whole  world  did  not  besiege  the  box  office 
on  that  occasion. 

The  next  appearance  was  better  attended,  and  success 
came  swiftly.  Naturally  it  would,  for  in  that  deliciously  humor 
ous  sketch  of  a  human  life,  its  trials  and  absurdities,  and  high 
spots  and  weaknesses,  every  normal  listener  found  himself 
epitomized.  The  first  lecture  may  not  have  been  generally 
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NEWSPAPER  CAREER 

accounted  a  work  of  genius,  but  it  came  very  near  being  all  of 
that.  Then  came  the  abandonment  of  the  reporter's  pad  and 
pencil  for  the  life  of  the  lecturer;  and  a  very  earnest  and  serious 
life  it  was,  for  all  it  dealt  in  smiles.  For  an  ardent  homelover 
like  Mr.  Burdette,  it  was  a  way  of  thorns,  but  he  accepted 
midnight  accommodation  trains,  poor  hotels,  cold  halls,  strange 
faces  and  all  the  crosses  and  adversities  of  a  man  who  travels 
with  a  grip  and  umbrella  in  one  hand  and  a  time  card  in  the 
other,  with  the  same  unchanging  smile,  and  a  steadily  growing 
philosophy. 

It  was  in  these  days,  when  he  was  a  lonely  wanderer  among 
strangers,  that  the  inner  counterpart  of  the  true  humorist 
began  to  appear,  that  is  the  man  of  pathos.  Laughter  and 
tears  lie  near  together,  and  the  man  who  is  really  master  of  the 
one  is  generally  known  by  his  ability  to  command  the  other. 
Up  to  this  time  Mr.  Burdette  had  written  little  but  in  lighter 
vein;  indeed,  almost  nothing  at  all.  Now,  however,  he  began 
to  touch  those  deeper  and  more  vibrant  chords  that  lie  beneath 
the  smiles  that  we  wear  on  the  surface.  He  had  been  through 
sad  experiences — "waters  that  are  deep  and  dark  and  bitter", 
as  he  phrased  it — and  the  pathos  of  life  and  things  began  to 
creep  into  his  pen.  And  the  strongest  proof  of  his  mastery  of 
the  pathetic  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  made  the  most  out  of  the 
smallest  and  most  ordinary  things. 

One  time  he  was  adrift  among  his  lecture  dates  away  down 
in  Maine,  in  which  State,  probably,  a  Westerner  feels  more 
forlornly  lost  and  astray  than  he  does  in  any  other  corner  of 
the  Union,  and  in  his  loneliness  he  strolled  down  among  the 
railroad  yards,  and  there  encountered,  not  an  adventure,  nor 
a  romance,  nor  a  great  piece  of  philosophy,  but  a  battered 
old  box  car  that  bore  the  name  of  the  Burlington  road,  the 
C.  B.  Q.  It  was  a  homely  and  hopelessly  unsentimental  old 
thing,  but  it  came  from  home !  It  was  a  dead,  insensate  embodi 
ment  of  a  soulless  corporation,  but  it  had  looked  on  the  same 
old  scenes — the  Sixth  Street  bridge,  and  the  old  depot,  where 
Mort  Haight  and  Charlie  Dunbar  and  Abe  Cleghorn  held  sway, 
and  the  streets  where  "she"  used  to  drive;  and  it  seemed  a 
living  link  to  the  past,  and  like  him,  a  lonely  wanderer. 

The  letter  that  came  back  to  the  Hawk-Eye  following  that 
night  was  nothing  but  a  visit  with  that  old  box  car,  but  as  I 

115 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

read  proof  on  it,  I  had  hard  work,  indeed,  to  see  through  my 
tears.  And  that  was  only  one  of  many  such  that  came  to  us 
in  the  course  of  those  months. 

From  those  days  forward  Mr.  Burdette  steadily 
and  visibly  developed.  Certain  crudities  of  diction 
vanished,  and  increasing  graces  grew  in  their  stead. 
He  became  less  and  less  a  mere  amuser,  and  more  and 
more  a  philosopher.  He  held  to  the  end  the  same  good 
cheer,  and  the  same  smiling  outlook  on  life,  and  the 
same  sweet  kindliness  that  forebore  in  the  days  of  his 
unphilosophic  youth,  to  make  a  jest  at  the  cost  of  any 
other  man,  but  he  brought  into  those  more  and  more 
of  the  pathos  of  life;  more  of  the  real  intent  of  the 
Creator,  who  gave  him  the  mystic  gift  of  his  divine 
humor  that  earnestness  should  mingle  with  our  smiles 
and  wisdom  temper  our  mirth.  He  must  have  lived 
wisely  and  wrought  well,  for  in  all  the  town  of  Burling 
ton,  after  he  had  lived  there  for  years,  not  a  man  or 
woman  could  ever  be  found  but  spoke  of  him  lovingly 
and  cherished,  as  a  treasure,  the  memory  of  his 
acquaintance  and  friendship. 

For  some  time,  at  the  beginning  of  his  platform 
career,  Mr.  Burdette  served  the  Hawk-Eye  as  special 
correspondent;  that  is,  while  he  wandered  to  and  fro 
in  the  filling  of  his  lecture  engagements,  he  wrote  two 
letters  a  week,  which  appeared  in  that  paper  over  his 
name,  and  under  the  caption  "Roaming  Robert". 

In  this  series  of  letters,  which  was  continued  two  or 
three  years,  appeared  some  of  the  finest  things  he  ever 
wrote.  Much  of  it  was  mere  airy  persiflage,  intended 
to  amuse  for  the  moment,  and  wholly  trivial  in  its 
character — and  still  quite  inimitable — but  very  much 
of  it  was  literature,  and  the  kind  of  literature  that 
people  read  and  then  paste  away  in  scrap-books  or 
116 


NEWSPAPER   CAREER 

treasure  in  the  pages  of  memory  and  often  mention, 
with  regret  at  their  inability  to  repeat  it. 

This  was  the  product  of  his  brain  and  pen,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  he  always  declared  that  he  never  set  out  to 
be  "funny"  or  to  be  a  "funny  man",  as  paragraphers 
were  known  at  that  time.  But  however  solemn  his 
thoughts,  he  could  not  resist  the  appeal  of  the  humorous 
side  of  almost  everything  that  surrounded  him,  and  the 
quirks  of  his  frolicsome  pen  seemed  sometimes  to  be 
independent  of  any  intent.  His  letters  then  and  later 
show  this  quick  turning  from  gay  to  grave  and  from 
grave  to  gay  to  be  one  of  the  odd  qualities  of  his  mind, 
and  even  in  times  of  his  greatest  trial  and  stress  his 
letters  revolved  rapidly  in  a  circle  that  included  its  arc 
of  philosophy,  humor,  pathos  and  almost  tragedy,  and 
so  rapidly  the  circle  revolved,  its  qualities  seemed 
almost  to  be  blended  in  one. 

Personally  he  was  joyous  and  frank,  made  friends 
quickly  and  to  those  he  loved  he  gave  at  once  apparently 
to  the  very  depth  of  his  spirit.  One  of  the  old  printers 
on  the  Hawk-Eye  said  of  the  instant  gripping  of  his 
personality,  upon  first  acquaintance: 

We  do  not  know  what  he  said  and  we  do  not  remember 
what  we  replied,  but  we  do  know  that  for  the  rest  of  the  night 
we  could  think  of  nothing  but  the  pleasant  manner  and  black 
eyes  of  the  famous  writer. 

And  with  men  of  genius  and  distinction  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  the  reading  of  the  Hawk-Eye  and  Mr. 
Burdette's  humorous  columns  was  a  genuine  pleasure. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  whom  Mr.  Burdette  so  admired 
in  earlier  days,  was  one  of  those  quick  to  recognize  the 
genius  of  the  Hawk-Eye  man  and  to  acknowledge  it 
with  word  and  pen,  and  in  a  letter  written  while  passing 
through  Burlington  on  one  of  his  lecture  trips  to  the 
West  said: 

117 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Burlington  is  well  placed  upon  the  Mississippi.  Whatever 
may  be  its  future  commercial  prosperity,  nothing  can  well  pre 
vent  its  being  a  delightful  place  of  residence.  Who  has  not 
heard  of  the  Burlington  Hawk-Eye?  Before  one  reads  a  line 
he  finds  himself  smiling  as  with  an  intuition  of  mirth  in  all  its 
quaint,  fantastic  guises.  Mr.  Burdette  adds  to  the  arduous 
duties  of  the  editorial  chair  the  amenities  of  a  lecturer,  and  is 
much  sought  for  at  home.  "A  prophet  is  not  without  honor 
save  among  his  own  countrymen "  has  no  relevancy  to  him,  as 
he  is  not  a  prophet,  but  a  gentleman,  an  editor  and  a  wit,  and 
is  best  esteemed  where  he  is  most  known. 

The  friendship  of  Mr.  Beecher  and  Mr.  Burdette 
began  with  the  early  recognition  of  Mr.  Burdette's 
quality  as  a  humorist,  and  continued  through  the 
years  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life.  At  his  death,  Mr.  Burdette 
acknowledged  his  life-long  obligation  to  the  great 
preacher:  "In  the  first  years  of  my  lecture  work,  or 
rather  play/'  he  said,  "his  advice  and  good  counsel 
made  smooth  many  rough  places/' 

To  quote  him,  when  speaking  of  Beecher  as  a 
humorist: 

"The  gravest  nations,"  says  Landor,  "have  been  the  wit 
tiest,  and  in  those  nations  some  of  the  gravest  men.  In  Eng 
land,  Swift  and  Addison;  in  Spain,  Cervantes.  Rabelais  and 
La  Fontaine  are  recorded  by  their  countrymen  to  have  been 
reveurs.  Few  men  have  been  graver  than  Pascal;  few  have 
been  wittier." 

So  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  humor  was  part  and  fiber  of  his 
earnestness.  I  think  he  never  felt  the  burden  of  being  "humor 
ous".  He  was  not  rendered  preternaturally  solemn  by  the 
dreadful  consciousness  that  something  "funny"  was  expected 
of  him;  and  so  he  never  seemed  to  pump  up  his  jokes  or  his 
light,  laughter-compelling  sayings.  If  he  did — for  no  man 
knows  how  much  heartache  a  laugh  may  hide — the  pumping 
was  so  delicately  done  by  hidden  machinery  that  the  stream  of 
his  humor  flowed  as  from  a  perennial  fount  of  unfailing  good 
nature.  He  did  not  use  his  humor  merely  to  create  a  laugh. 

118 


NEWSPAPER   CAREER 

It  was  part  of  his  work — part  of  himself.  It  was  as  natural 
as  sunshine,  in  the  social  circle,  on  the  platform,  or  in  the  pulpit; 
it  was  bright,  restful,  reverent,  because  of  its  very  earnestness. 
Behind  every  laugh,  in  lecture  or  sermon,  lay  some  ambushed 
truth  that  thrust  itself  upon  you  as  the  laughing  skirmishers 
that  lured  you  to  its  front  passed  away.  He  was  a  Carlyle 
man,  who  "sang  at  his  work,  inarching  always  to  music,"  so 
that  his  efforts  to  be  useful  were  "uniformly  joyous,  a  spirit  all 
sunshine,  graceful  from  very  gladness,  beautiful  because  bright." 

It  was  because  his  humor  was  so  much  an  unconscious 
part  of  himself  that  one  despairs  of  reproducing  it.  The  task 
is  difficult,  and  indeed  is  in  most  instances  a  failure;  note  the 
many  poor  stories  already  credited  to  Mr.  Beecher  by  well- 
meaning  narrators  who  have  attempted  to  translate  untrans 
latable  "Beecherisms".  Take  away  the  rest  of  the  sermon, 
take  away  the  company,  the  circumstances,  the  time,  the  argu 
ment  or  the  conversation  that  called  forth  the  jest  or  story — 
take  away  from  it  all  the  preacher  himself,  and  too  often  you 
have  left  Hamlet  out  of  the  play. 

Robert  Ingersoll  was  another  of  his  friends  of  boy 
hood  and  of  young  manhood,  and  he  had  always  the 
deepest  admiration  for  the  brilliancy  and  oratorical  gen 
ius  of  the  great  agnostic.  Ingersoll  was  a  Peorian  and  a 
friend  of  young  Burdette  not  only  in  his  school  days, 
but  afterward  in  his  work  upon  the  Transcript  and 
Review,  and  while  in  his  letters  to  the  Hawk-Eye  and 
in  his  platform  addresses  he  joined  issues  frequently 
with  the  Ingersollian  views  and  preachments,  he  was 
at  the  same  time  a  student  of  the  Ingersollian  method, 
so  far  as  an  expression  of  his  ideas  in  public  speech  was 
concerned,  and  he  kept  for  many  years  a  copy  of  one 
of  IngersolPs  articles  upon  oratory,  in  which  the  main 
points  were  carefully  marked,  and  had  been  evidently 
as  carefully  observed. 

Mr.  Burdette's  speech,  like  his  writing,  was  eloquent, 
possibly  the  eloquence  that  had  come  down  from  his 
singing  Welsh  ancestry.  His  manuscripts  were  written 

119 


ROBERT  J.   BTJRDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

usually  with  ink,  and  his  words  flowed  freely  from  his 
pen,  so  that  his  first  draft,  with  few  interlineations  or 
erasures,  was  available  either  as  newspaper  or  lecture 
platform  "copy".  He  was  a  master  of  adjectives,  and 
his  perorations  reached  always  a  climax  without  hesi 
tation,  and  while,  when  it  was  suggested  to  him  that 
he  lecture,  he  objected  upon  the  ground  that  he  was 
not  an  orator,  yet  it  is  true  that  he  had  always  had  a 
genius  for  story-telling. 


120 


CHAPTER  V 

LECTURE  PLATFORM 

A"  the  time  Mr.  Burdette  turned  to  the  lecture 
platform  it  was  at  the  height  of  its  popularity. 
In  the  days  before  the  Civil  War  it  had  been 
the  means  whereby  political  orators  and  social 
propagandists  were  enabled  to  present  their  views. 
After  the  war  this  popularity  increased,  and  its  scope 
was  greatly  enlarged.     Nearly  every  town  of  impor 
tance,  and  indeed  many  small  towns,  had  their  "star 
courses",  which  included  lectures  of  the  serious  sort  by 
Talmage,  Wendell  Phillips,  Russell  Conwell,  Beecher, 
Ingersoll,  or  one  of  a  great  number  of  lesser  lights, 
programme   of   music,    " impersonations,"    stories   of 
travel  and  other  features  of  entertainment. 

Humorous  lecturers  were  not  so  numerous,  and  the 
lecture  lists  in  those  days  were  always  carefully  labelled 
"humorist"  in  a  significant  parenthesis,  for  the  temper 
of  the  people  was  serious  following  the  Civil  War,  and 
the  full  tide  of  the  reaction  toward  humor  had  not  yet 
set  in.  Henry  W.  Shaw  (Josh  Billings)  and  "Artemus" 
Ward  had  appeared  with  considerable  success  as  lec 
turers  and  readers  of  their  own  humorous  comment. 
Mark  Twain  had  not  yet  found  the  lecture  platform 
sufficiently  alluring,  although  in  after  years  he  lectured 
at  occasional  intervals.  The  "Danbury  News  Man" 
(J.  M.  Bailey)  made  a  brief  appearance,  but  did  not  con 
tinue  the  work,  and  Mr.  Burdette  was  perhaps  the  first 
of  the  newspaper  humorists  to  make  an  appearance  with 
a  lecture,  prepared  for  the  times  and  tastes  of  the  plat 
form  course,  that  had  a  continued  and  consistent  vogue. 

121 


ROBERT   J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

His  first  lecture  announcement  ran: 

"Robert  J.  Burdette,  the  Humorist  of  the  Bur 
lington  Hawk-Eye,  is  prepared  to  make  a  limited 
number  of  engagements  to  lecture  this  season, 
after  December  25th,  1876.  Terms  $50.00. 
Library  Associations,  Literary  Societies,  Lecture 
Lyceums,  etc.,  can  secure  this  by  addressing 
Robert  J.  Burdette,  Associate  Editor,  Hawk-Eye, 
Burlington,  Iowa." 

His  first  appearance  was  at  the  little  town  of 
Keokuk,  in  Iowa,  in  December,  1876,  with  "The 
Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Mustache",  which  came  to  be 
known  in  practically  every  state  of  the  Union,  and 
which  he  delivered  nearly  five  thousand  times,  so  that 
he  said  afterward,  "It  was  only  necessary  to  start  it 
and  it  would  say  itself."  It  was  the  story  of  the  transi 
tion  from  the  childhood  of  the  boy  to  his  manhood,  in 
its  humorous  and  pathetic  phases,  as  Mr.  Burdette's 
lively  imagination  saw  and  pictured  them,  and  he 
himself  gives  the  account  of  its  first  delivery: 

Keokuk — I  launched  my  first  lecture  on  the  broad  ocean 
of  human  hearts  and  ears  in  December,  1876,  in  Keokuk.  The 
Baptist  church  was  the  generous  phalanx  that  supported  me 
and  stood  responsible  for  the  lecture.  A  warm-hearted  swarm 
of  Keokuk's  best  and  kindest  was  the  audience.  I  had  about 
nine  and  a  half  pounds  of  manuscript  on  the  reading  desk,  I 
think,  and  I  read  it  clear  through.  Never  missed  a  word, 
didn't  leave  out  a  line;  took  me  two  hours  and  fifteen  minutes. 

When  I  got  through  I  hadn't  enough  voice  left  to  ask  for 
a  glass  of  water,  and  my  throat  was  so  dry  I  couldn't  drink  it 
when  I  got  it.  How  wretchedly  I  felt  whenever  the  audience 
laughed!  I  thought,  "They're  laughing  at  me".  Maybe  they 
were.  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  I  was  reading  what  pur 
ported  to  be  a  humorous  lecture.  Occasional  bursts  of  applause 
frightened  me.  I  thought,  "Well,  now  what?" 

When  I  dared  look  up,  the  encouraging  countenances  of 
122 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

my  audience  reassured  me  and  I'd  pull  myself  together  and 
read  a  little  louder  and  a  great  deal  faster.  Oh,  that  was  a 
great  big,  long,  wide,  large  lecture,  it  was! 

The  record  of  his  first  lecture  is  tersely  set  down  in 
a  memorandum  book  of  his  lecture  engagements  that 
he  prepared  toward  the  end  of  his  platform  work,  from 
records  of  his  lecture  days,  which  included  the 
towns  in  which  he  had  appeared,  his  several  appear 
ances  in  each,  the  organization  for  which  he  appeared, 
the  title  of  the  lecture,  the  humorous  stories  inter 
polated,  and  any  incidents  he  might  wish  to  recall 
upon  the  occasion  of  his  re-visitation.  In  the  instance 
of  Keokuk  he  set  the  town  down  characteristically  in 
bold  capitals,  and  he  notes  specifically  his  compensa 
tion,  which  was  one-half  of  $32.00,  the  gross  receipts 
for  the  evening. 

Carefully  he  preserved  everything  that  pertained  to 
his  first  formal  public  appearance,  and  it  is  interesting, 
after  this  time,  to  note  contemporaneous  comment. 
The  Keokuk,  Iowa,  Gate  City,  following  his  first  appear 
ance  there,  observed  that — 

Keokuk  audiences  are  not  always  large,  but  they  are  pretty 
much  always  critical.  The  lecturer  was  introduced  by  a  Dr. 
Cleaver,  and  in  less  than  five  minutes  he  fully  ingratiated  him 
self  into  the  good  graces  of  the  audience.  The  amount  of  fun 
Which  he  crowded  into  those  five  minutes  put  everybody  in 
excellent  humor  for  what  followed.  A  vein  of  genuine  humor 
pervaded  the  entire  lecture,  and  while  the  grotesque  and  ludi 
crous  portions  of  it  were  capital,  the  brilliant  flights  of  rhetoric 
which  the  lecturer  frequently  indulged  in  were  not  least  to  be 
commended  by  any  means.  Whatever  criticism  may  be  made 
of  the  manner  of  delivery,  it  must  be  stated  that  the  matter 
was  excellent  throughout. 

And  while  the  last  sentence  may  be  a  diluted 
compliment  of  the  Tom  Sawyerish  variety,  without 

123 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

doubt  his  first  audience  was  honestly  in  sympathy 
with  him. 

At  last  Mr.  Burdette  had  found  his  work,  and  his 
eloquence,  keen  wit,  tender  humor  and  pathos  equipped 
him  for  the  lecture  platform,  a  life  he  followed  for  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

That  winter  he  was  in  much  demand  from  church 
and  other  organizations  in  Iowa  and  Illinois,  and  he 
responded  to  those  demands  as  much  as  possible,  con 
sidering  his  Hawk-Eye  duties,  and  for  a  small  fee. 

It  was  inevitable  that  his  work  should  come  to  the 
attention  of  the  bureaus,  and  in  the  spring  of  1877  he 
had  his  first  overture  from  Hathaway  and  Pond  of  the 
Redpath  Lyceum  Bureau,  offering  him  a  place  upon 
their  list,  and  the  probability  of  a  considerable  number 
of  lecture  engagements  in  the  West  in  the  fall  and  winter 
of  1877  and  1878.  That  offer  he  accepted,  and  it  was 
in  that  fall  and  winter  that  he  did  his  first  bureau 
work. 

His  first  book  was  issued  in  1877,  in  response  to 
a  demand  for  the  text  of  his  lecture  on  "The  Rise  and 
Fall  of  the  Mustache".  It  was  published  by  the  Bur 
lington  Publishing  Company,  in  which  was  included 
Robert  J.  Burdette,  Frank  Hatton  and  his  brother, 
Harry  Hatton,  J.  L.  Waite  and  James  Putnam.  The 
latter  was  the  business  manager  of  the  publishing 
company  and  succeeded  in  pushing  the  sales  to  a  con 
siderable  edition,  but  the  expense  incident  to  book 
publishing  by  a  new  and  inexperienced  company  did  not 
make  the  enterprise  especially  profitable,  as  is  indi 
cated  in  a  letter  to  G.  W.  Carleton,  the  New  York 
publisher,  written  by  Mr.  Burdette  at  the  time: 

My  book  is  just  out.  I  brought  it  out  myself;  Burlington 
Publishing  Company,  Robert  J.  Burdette,  President.  I 
124 


MR.   BURDETTE  IN   1877,  AT  THE  BEGINNING   OF  HIS   LECTURE  CAREER 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

wouldn't  be  president  of  anything  again  if  I  lived  and  died  in 
unofficial  obscurity.  I  wouldn't  be  President  of  the  United 
States.  I  wouldn't  publish  another  book  myself  if  this  great 
living  world  went  down  to  its  grave  in  ignorance,  groping  in 
the  darkness  for  my  book,  and  crying  in  agonizing  tones,  "  Bring 
out  your  book! "  I  would  say,  " Book  be  blowed ! "  I  am  glad 
my  book  is  out,  though.  I  am  glad  it  is  going  to  make  me  so 
wealthy.  I  am  glad  I  can  take  part  of  the  money  and  pay  off 
the  national  debt;  but  not  on  my  own  account.  Ah  no.  I 
could  stand  the  national  debt  three  or  four  years  longer. 

The  three  years  from  his  advent  on  the  platform 
until  1880  his  family  remained  in  Burlington,  where  he 
combined  his  Hawk-Eye  and  lecture  work,  spending 
most  of  the  lecture  season  upon  the  road,  and  the  time 
when  he  was  not  thus  engaged,  in  the  office  of  the 
Hawk-Eye  and  with  his  family.  These  were  periods 
of  alternate  exaltation  and  depression.  Sensitive  to 
what  he  felt  to  be  his  shortcomings  as  a  public  speaker, 
he  was  inclined,  not  infrequently,  to  think  his  work  a 
failure. 

A  list  of  the  lecturers  and  entertainers  of  those  days 
is  especially  interesting  after  a  lapse  of  years.  It 
included  P.  T.  Barnum,  the  showman,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  James  G.  Elaine,  Will  Carleton,  Schuyler 
Colfax,  Rev.  Robert  Collyer,  Edward  Eggleston,  the 
beloved  James  T.  Fields,  John  B.  Gough,the  temperance 
lecturer  and  one  of  the  veterans  of  the  platform,  Julia 
Ward  Howe  and  Mary  A.  Livermore. 

Rev.  T.  DeWitt  Talmage  was  another  of  the  stars 
of  those  days.  Joaquin  Miller,  the  poet  of  the  Sierras, 
gave  readings  of  his  poems.  Thomas  Nast,  the  car 
toonist,  was  included  as  a  lecture  possibility.  Wendell 
Phillips  was  one  of  the  bureau's  "Big  Three ",  which 
included  Beecher,  Phillips  and  Gough.  Henry  W. 
Shaw  ("Josh  Billings"),  with  Burdette,  William  S. 

125 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Andrews  and  E.  C.  Dubois,  were  included  as  the 
humorists  of  the  bureau  list.  Others  listed  as  readers 
were  Nella  F.  Brown  and  Mrs.  Laura  F.  Dainty,  one 
of  the  most  popular  of  the  "elocutionists"  of  that  day, 
and  among  the  entertainments  is  included  that  of  Sol 
Smith  Russell  and  Oliver  Optic,  in  what  was  listed 
as  "A  New  Duologue  Entertainment".  Among  the 
old  letters  of  Mr.  Burdette  is  one  from  the  beloved 
Sol  Smith  Russell,  afterwards  so  well  and  affectionately 
known  as  a  comedian  upon  the  legitimate  stage,  asking 
if  the  Hawk-Eye  man  would  not  prepare  him  some  new 
and  original  character  sketches  for  his  platform 
impersonations. 

His  engagement  with  the  lecture  bureau  meant  that 
in  the  future  he  would  spend  most  of  his  time  away  from 
the  Hawk-Eye  sanctum,  and  while,  without  question, 
he  regretted  the  severing  of  the  intimate  relations  with 
the  Hawk-Eye  staff  and  the  people  of  Burlington  that 
had  made  his  days  there  a  source  of  continued  interest 
and  delight,  yet  there  were  many  reasons  why  he  felt 
it  his  duty  to  make  the  change.  The  returns  from  his 
platform  work  were  much  greater,  naturally,  than  any 
newspaper  position  could  pay.  The  acquaintance  to 
be  brought  about  with  thousands  of  his  auditors  by  the 
contact  of  the  lecture  platform  meant  a  wider  circula 
tion  for  his  published  writings,  and  the  work  itself  he 
found  altogether  inspiring  and  agreeable. 

So  after  a  discussion  of  the  matter  with  his  asso 
ciates  of  the  Hawk-Eye,  it  was  agreed  that  his  office 
work  should  be  taken  over  by  others,  and  he  should 
have  his  liberty  to  do  his  lecture  work,  it  being  under 
stood  that  he  was  to  write  a  letter  a  day  to  the  Hawk- 
Eye  as  his  fancy  might  dictate.  These  letters  covered 
a  period  of  five  years.  Nearly  always  he  headed  them 

126 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

with  a  limerick  and  accredited  it  to  well-known  authors 
— Shakespeare,  Oscar  Wilde,  Browning,  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  and  others,  and  they  were  so  evidently  incon 
gruous  that  one  smiled  to  think  of  the  daring  in  the 
assumption.  They  included  sometimes  humorous, 
sometimes  serious  descriptions  of  the  towns  in  which 
he  lectured,  of  his  audiences,  his  experiences  while 
traveling,  and  frequent  pen  pictures  of  the  notables  of 
the  time  as  he  encountered  them  in  his  travels.  Of 
his  letters,  the  one  of  greatest  general  interest  was  that 
which  contained  his  "Brakeman  at  Church".  This 
was  a  detailed  account  of  an  imagined  conversation 
with  that  functionary  of  a  train  upon  which  he  was 
traveling,  in  which  was  set  forth  his  view  of  the  different 
religious  denominations. 

It  is  probable  that  no  article  of  newspaper  phil 
osophy  and  humor  written  in  that,  or  possibly  in  any 
period,  has  been  more  times  reproduced  or  has  had  a 
wider  general  circulation.  Its  popularity  was  imme 
diate,  and  after  its  publication  in  the  newspaper  letter, 
it  was  republished  by  the  Hawk-Eye  as  a  pamphlet, 
and  was  distributed  by  tens  of  thousands.  It  was 
copied  by  practically  every  newspaper  of  more  than 
the  slightest  importance  in  the  country.  It  was  repro 
duced  for  advertising  purposes  by  dozens  of  publishers 
in  pocket  memorandum  books  and  had  a  very  wide 
circulation  in  this  form.  It  was  read  from  a  hundred 
platforms,  and  few  of  the  reading  public  of  that  gen 
eration  but  had  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  "Brake 
man  at  Church". 

The  letter  in  which  it  first  appeared  was  written 
from  Lebanon,  Ind.,  December  29,  1879,  and  the 
article  itself  is  reproduced  as  perhaps  the  most  generally 
interesting  of  his  newspaper  sketches: 

127 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

LEBANON,  IND.,  Dec.  29th. 

On  the  road  once  more,  with  Lebanon  fading  away  in  the 
distance,  the  fat  passenger  drumming  idly  on  the  window  pane, 
the  cross  passenger  sound  asleep  and  the  tall  thin  passenger 
reading  "  General  Grant's  Tour  Around  the  World  ",  and  won 
dering  why  "Green's  August  Flower"  should  be  printed  above 
the  doors  of  "A  Buddhist  Temple  in  Benares".  To  me  comes 
the  brakeman,  and  seating  himself  on  the  arm  of  the  seat,  says: 

"  I  went  to  church  yesterday." 

"Yes?"  I  said,  with  that  interested  inflection  that  asks 
for  more.  "And  what  church  did  you  attend?" 

"Which  do  you  guess?"  he  asked. 

"Some  union  mission  church?"     I  hazarded. 

"  Naw,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  like  to  run  on  these  branch  roads 
very  much.  I  don't  often  go  to  church,  and  when  I  do,  I  want 
to  run  on  the  main  line,  where  your  run  is  regular  and  you  go 
on  schedule  time  and  don't  have  to  wait  on  connections.  I 
don't  like  to  run  on  a  branch.  Good  enough, but  I  don't  like  it. 

"  Episcopal?  "     I  guessed. 

"Limited  express,"  he  said,  "all  palace  cars  and  two 
dollars  extra  for  a  seat;  fast  time  and  only  stop  at  the  big 
stations.  Nice  line,  but  too  exhaustive  for  a  brakeman.  All 
train  men  in  uniform,  conductor's  punch  and  lantern  silver- 
plated,  and  no  train  boys  allowed.  Then  the  passengers  are 
allowed  to  talk  back  at  the  conductor,  and  it  makes  them  too 
free  and  easy.  No,  I  couldn't  stand  the  palace  cars.  Rich 
road,  though.  Don't  often  hear  of  a  receiver  being  appointed 
for  that  line.  Some  mighty  nice  people  travel  on  it,  too." 

"Universalist?"    I  suggested. 

"Broad  gauge,"  said  the  brakeman;  "does  too  much 
complimentary  business.  Everybody  travels  on  a  pass.  Con 
ductor  doesn't  get  a  fare  once  in  fifty  miles.  Stops  at  all  flag 
stations  and  won't  run  into  anything  but  a  union  depot.  No 
smoking  car  on  the  train.  Train  orders  are  rather  vague 
though,  and  the  train  men  don't  get  along  well  with  the  passen 
gers.  No,  I  didn't  go  to  the  Universalist,  though  I  know  some 
awfully  good  men  who  run  on  that  road." 

"  Presbyterian?  "     I  asked. 

"Narrow  gauge,  eh?"  said  the  brakeman,  "pretty  track, 
straight  as  a  rule;  tunnel  right  through  a  mountain  rather  than 
128 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

go  around  it;  spirit  level  grade;  passengers  have  to  show  their 
tickets  before  they  get  on  the  train.  Mighty  strict  road,  but 
the  cars  are  a  little  narrow;  have  to  sit  one  in  a  seat  and  no 
room  in  the  aisle  to  dance.  Then  there's  no  stop-over  tickets 
allowed;  got  to  go  straight  through  to  the  station  you're 
ticketed  for,  or  you  can't  get  on  at  all.  When  the  car's  full, 
no  extra  coaches;  cars  built  at  the  shops  to  hold  just  so  many 
and  nobody  else  allowed  on.  But  you  don't  often  hear  of  an 
accident  on  that  road.  It's  run  right  up  to  the  rules." 

"Maybe  you  joined  the  Free  Thinkers,"  I  said. 

"Scrub  road,"  said  the  brakeman,  "dirt  road-bed  and  no 
ballast;  no  time  card  and  no  train  despatcher.  All  trains  run 
wild  and  every  engineer  makes  his  own  time,  just  as  he  pleases. 
Smoke  if  you  want  to;  kind  of  a  go-as-you-please  road.  Too 
many  side  tracks,  and  every  switch  wide  open  all  the  time, 
with  the  switchman  sound  asleep  and  the  target  lamp  dead  out. 
Get  on  as  you  please  and  get  off  when  you  want  to.  Don't 
have  to  show  your  tickets,  and  the  conductor  isn't  expected  to 
do  anything  but  amuse  the  passengers.  No,  sir,  I  was  offered 
a  pass,  but  I  don't  like  the  line.  I  don't  like  to  travel  on  a 
road  that  has  no  terminus.  Do  you  know,  sir,  I  asked  a  divi 
sion  superintendent  where  that  road  run  to,  and  he  said  he 
hoped  to  die  if  he  knew. 

"  I  asked  him  if  the  general  superintendent  could  tell  me, 
and  he  said  he  didn't  believe  they  had  a  general  superintendent, 
and  if  they  had,  he  didn't  know  anything  more  about  the  road 
than  the  passengers.  I  asked  him  who  he  reported  to  and  he 
said  'nobody'.  I  asked  a  conductor  who  he  got  his  orders 
from,  and  he  said  he  didn't  take  orders  from  any  living  man  or 
dead  ghost.  And  when  I  asked  the  engineer  who  he  got  his 
orders  from,  he  said  he'd  like  to  see  anybody  give  him  orders, 
he'd  run  that  train  to  suit  himself  or  he'd  run  it  into  the  ditch. 

"Now  you  see,  sir,  I'm  a  railroad  man,  and  I  don't  care  to 
run  on  a  road  that  has  no  time,  makes  no  connections,  runs 
nowhere  and  has  no  superintendent.  It  may  be  all  right,  but 
I've  railroaded  too  long  to  understand  it." 

"  Did  you  try  the  Methodist?  "     I  said. 

"Now  you're  shouting,"  he  said  with  some  enthusiasm. 

"Nice  road,  eh?" 

"Fast  time  and  plenty  of  passengers.     Engines  carry  a 

power  of  steam,  and  don't  you  forget  it;  steam  gauge  shows  a 

9  129 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

hundred  and  enough  all  the  time.  Lively  road ;  when  the  con 
ductor  shouts  '  all  aboard '  you  can  hear  him  to  the  next  station. 
Every  train  lamp  shines  like  a  headlight.  Stop-over  checks 
given  on  all  through  tickets;  passenger  can  drop  off  the  train 
as  often  as  he  likes,  do  the  station  two  or  three  days,  and  hop 
on  the  next  revival  train  that  comes  thundering  along.  Good, 
whole-souled,  companionable  conductors;  ain't  a  road  in  the 
country  where  the  passengers  feel  more  at  home.  No  passes; 
every  passenger  pays  full  traffic  rates  for  his  ticket.  Wesleyan- 
house  air  brake  on  all  trains,  too;  pretty  safe  road,  but  I  didn't 
ride  over  it  yesterday." 

"Maybe  you  went  to  the  Congregational  church?"    I  said. 

"Popular  road,"  said  the  brakeman,  "an  old  road  too; 
one  of  the  very  oldest  in  this  country.  Good  road  bed  and 
comfortable  cars.  Well  managed  road,  too;  directors  don't 
interfere  with  division  superintendent  and  train  orders.  Road's 
mighty  popular,  but  it's  pretty  independent  too.  See,  didn't 
one  of  the  division  superintendents  down  east  discontinue  one 
of  the  oldest  stations  on  this  line  two  or  three  years  ago?  But 
it  is  a  mighty  pleasant  road  to  travel  on.  Always  has  such  a 
splendid  class  of  passengers." 

"Perhaps  you  tried  the  Baptist?"    I  guessed  once  more. 

"Ah,  ha!"  said  the  brakeman,  "she's  a  daisy,  isn't  she? 
River  road;  beautiful  curves;  sweep  around  anything  to  keep 
close  to  the  river,  but  it's  all  steel  rail  and  rock  ballast,  single 
track  all  the  way  and  not  a  side  track  from  the  round  house  to 
the  terminus.  Takes  heaps  of  water  to  run  it  through ;  double 
tanks  at  every  station,  and  there  isn't  an  engine  in  the  shops 
that  can  pull  a  pound  or  run  a  mile  with  less  than  two  gauges. 
But  it  runs  through  a  lovely  country;  these  river  roads  always 
do;  river  on  one  side  and  hills  on  the  other,  and  it's  a  steady 
climb  up  the  grade  all  the  way  till  the  run  ends  where  the  foun- 
tainhead  of  the  river  begins.  Yes,  sir,  I'll  take  the  river  road 
every  time  for  a  lovely  trip,  sure  connections  and  good  time, 
and  no  prairie  dust  blowing  in  at  the  windows.  And  yesterday 
when  the  conductor  came  around  for  the  tickets  with  a  little 
basket  punch,  I  didn't  ask  him  to  pass  me,  but  I  paid  my  fare 
like  a  little  man — twenty-five  cents  for  an  hour's  run  and  a 
little  concert  by  the  passengers  throwed  in.  I  tell  you,  Pilgrim, 

you  take  the  river  road  when  you  want " 

130 


LECTURE   PLATFORM 

But  just  here  the  long  whistle  from  the  engine  announced 
a  station  and  the  brakeman  hurried  to  the  door,  shouting: 

"Zionsville!  This  train  makes  no  stops  between  here  and 
Indianapolis !" 

The  pictures  of  his  contemporaries  as  he  found 
them  in  his  travels  were  interesting.  Of  an  early  New 
England  trip  he  writes  from  Boston,  in  December  of 
1879: 

Reached  here  in  the  morning  and  went  to  Tremont  House. 
Delightfully  old-fashioned  rooms.  Bathroom  about  the  size 
of  a  drygoods  box.  Waiters  appear  to  have  been  born  in  the 
house.  Weather  villainous;  composed  principally  of  east  wind. 
Met  a  chilling  reception  at  the  bureau.  Major  Pond  found  me 
and  made  me  feel  at  home.  A  splendid  big-hearted  fellow. 
Took  tea  with  himself  and  wife,  a  handsome  young  lady,  and  a 
famous  vocalist,  Miss  Isabel  Stone.  Heard  Cook  and  Beecher 
lecture.  Liked  Joseph  (Cook)  much  better  than  I  expected  I 
would.  Lectured  in  Tremont  Temple  myself  Dec.  4.  Audience 
not  more  intelligent  than,  and  not  half  as  appreciative  as  most 
Western  audiences.  Might  have  been  my  own  fault,  but  I 
was  disappointed,  all  the  same. 

And  a  few  days  later  he  writes  from  New  Bedford, 
Mass. : 

A  rousing  big  house,  the  best,  in  point  of  intelligence  and 
good  humor,  I  have  faced  this  year.  Entertained  by  E.  C. 
Milliken,  old-fashioned  old  people,  from  Maine.  Met  two 
sons  and  one  daughter-in-law.  Younger  son,  Frank  D.,  a 
lawyer,  just  appointed  Justice.  Massachusetts  legal  contempt 
for  Indiana  reports  not  considered  authority.  Jolly  reception 
in  the  Pleasant  Street  M.  E.  Church  after  the  lecture. 

This  picture  of  Boston  people  as  he  saw  them  is 
interesting: 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  a  western  man  when  he  lands 
in  Boston,  is  the  wonderful  reserve  of  the  people  here.  He 
sits  down  in  utter  desolation  as  he  misses  the  cordiality  and 

131 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

frankness  and  heartiness  of  western  society.  The  Bostonian 
is  not  gruff;  he  is  not  supercilious;  he  is  not  impolite.  He 
could  not  be  more  courteously  attentive  to  the  wants  of  the 
stranger;  but  his  courtesy  never  runs  to  "gush".  I  stopped  a 
man  on  the  street  yesterday  to  ask  the  way  to  a  certain  locality. 
He  looked  at  his  watch  and  hesitated  a  moment.  "I  can't 
direct  you  so  that  you  could  find  it,  if  you  are  a  stranger,"  he 
said;  and  in  spite  of  my  feeble  protestations,  he  turned  back 
and  went  with  me,  and  I  saw  him,  when  he  left  me,  again  glance 
at  his  watch  and  walk  away  at  a  gait  that  indicated  a  feverish 
desire  to  make  up  for  lost  time.  If  he  kept  up  that  gait  he  is 
in  San  Francisco  this  morning. 

It  is  a  very  simple  incident,  but  it  illustrates  one  phase  of 
Boston  character  very  plainly.  He  wasn't  at  all  sociable  or 
conversational  during  our  ten  minutes'  walk,  not  a  bit  of  it. 
Now,  out  west,  we  would  have  shaken  hands  with  the  puzzled 
stranger,  slapped  him  on  the  back,  called  him  "old  boy", 
directed  him  as  far  as  he  could  follow  our  instructions  intelli 
gently,  and  then  told  him  when  he  got  to  that  corner,  anybody 
would  tell  him  the  rest  of  the  way. 

One  doesn't  get  intimately  and  accurately  acquainted  with 
the  motives  and  inner  life  of  a  community  in  three  days,  but 
I  have  found  the  people  I  have  met  here  to  be  the  most  delight 
ful  of  acquaintances  as  this  reserve,  that  at  first  freezes  the 
western  man,  wears  away.  While  this  reserve,  I  think,  is  a 
general  characteristic  of  Boston  people,  it  isn't  universal.  This 
afternoon  Major  Pond  took  me  down  to  the  greatest  publish 
ing  house  in  this  country,  and  within  five  minutes  Mr.  Houghton 
and  Mr.  Osgood  made  me  think  I  was  back  in  Burlington,  and 
I  instinctively  looked  out  of  the  window  to  see  what  the  South 
Hill  woman  was  doing  for  tomorrow  morning's  Hawk-Eye. 

This  is  the  picture  of  him  as  the  Boston  Globe  saw 
him  at  the  time  of  his  appearance: 

A  square-shouldered  man,  who  is  too  large  to  be  called 
diminutive,  and  too  small  to  be  ranked  with  people  of  average 
size,  tiptoed  in  from  a  side  door  and  stole  bashfully  across  the 
stage  at  the  B.  Y.  M.  C.  A.  building  while  the  president  was 
speaking  last  evening.  He  took  a  seat  at  one  end  of  the  stage 
132 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

and  doubled  his  legs  up  under  him  and  tried  to  conceal  his  left 
hand  by  placing  his  right  one  over  it.  Finding  this  impossible, 
he  reversed  the  process  with  no  better  result. 

The  400  or  500  people  present  looked  at  him  and  applauded, 
for  which  compliment  he  bowed,  and  then  made  another 
attempt  to  conceal  his  hands.  A  round,  strong  face,  with  a 
look  that  might  be  cynical  if  it  were  not  toned  down  with  pleas 
antness,  dark  eyes,  stowed  safely  away  under  over-hanging 
brows,  a  well-arched  mouth,  surmounted  by  a  moustache  that 
showed  symptoms  of  good  care  and  waxing,  and  a  heavy 
growth  of  brown  hair  parted  on  the  right  side,  and  rolling  over 
his  left  ear  in  a  fluffy  bunch  that  amounted  almost  to  a  coil, 
completed  a  picture  that  was  not  bad  to  look  upon. 

In  a  letter  written  en  route  in  the  West  he  wrote: 

On  the  way  to  Lincoln  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  meet 
Frances  Willard  on  the  train.  She  is  lecturing  on  this  side 
of  the  Missouri  River,  and  her  efforts  in  the  great  work  on  home 
protection  are  meeting  everywhere  with  encouraging  success. 
She  is  a  woman  who  cannot  be  easily  discouraged,  under  any 
circumstances;  she  has  fought  a  good  fight,  and  fought  it 
bravely,  and  her  devotion  to  the  cause  with  which  her  name  is 
so  thoroughly  identified,  has  developed  and  strengthened  all 
the  womanly  qualities  which  so  eminently  fit  her  for  this  work. 

She  is  a  brilliant,  entertaining  conversationalist,  and  how 
well  she  talked  about  Grant  and  the  turned  glasses  at  his 
place  at  the  banquet  table.  Certainly  it  was  a  grand  thing  for 
him  to  do.  Grander  than  pounding  Vicksburg  into  dust  and 
submission;  grander  than  the  terrible  victories  of  the  Wilder 
ness;  grander  even  than  standing  on  the  neck  of  humbled  and 
crushed  rebellion  at  Appomattox;  it  was  the  grandest  of  all 
victories,  the  victory  over  self,  for  "he  that  ruleth  his  spirit  is 
better  than  he  that  taketh  a  city". 

And  the  man  who  saved  the  republic  has  perhaps  no  idea 
of  the  great  good  his  example  in  the  house  of  feasting  has 
wrought  among  the  men,  and  especially  the  young  men,  who 
admire  Grant.  In  more  than  one  instance  this  spring,  have  I 
heard  this  action  quoted  by  some  young  fellow  at  a  banquet 
table,  as  he  turned  his  glass,  "in  imitation",  he  would  say, 
"of  Grant".  And  I  think  it  is  the  brightest  leaf  in  the  great 

133 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

soldier's  laurels;   the  fairest  deed  of  the  man  who  saved  the 
republic. 

This  paragraph  occurs  in  a  New  York  letter: 

Into  the  parlor  car  at  Salamanca  comes  a  tall  man,  with 
gray  hair,  a  white  beard  and  a  gray  mustache;  there  is  a  merry 
twinkle  in  the  kindly  eyes,  a  world  of  cordiality  in  the  strong 
grip  of  the  big  hand,  and  a  steady  flow  of  quiet  drollery  and 
rare  good  sense  and  honest  philosophy  in  the  sentences  that 
drop  from  the  heavily  bearded  lips. 

It  is  Mr.  Shaw,  whom  the  world  knows  better,  it  may  be, 
as  "Josh  Billings".  "I  am  sixty-three  years  old,"  he  said  to 
me,  and  I  could  scarcely  believe  it.  He  may  have  lived  sixty- 
three  years,  but  he  is  younger  today  than  the  boys  who  have 
learned  to  read  from  his  "Allminax".  He  has  lectured  eighty- 
six  nights  this  season,  and  he  wants  to  go  home,  if  the  lecture 
association  will  let  him.  I  watched  him  get  off  the  train  at 
Meadville,  I  saw  the  committee  swallow  him  up  in  their  em 
braces,  and  I  thought  what  a  happy  crowd  there  was  going 
to  be  at  Meadville  that  night. 

Of  Eugene  Field,  in  a  letter  written  from  Kansas 
City  about  1880,  he  says: 

There  are  few  Press  Clubs  in  the  Republic  that  can,  like 
that  of  Kansas  City,  supply  its  rooms  with  its  own  music,  vocal, 
instrumental  and  chin,  and  that  too  of  a  high  order  of  musical 
excellence.  Eugene  Field  is,  as  his  thousands  of  readers  and 
admirers  would  naturally  suppose,  the  life  of  this  liveliest  of 
fraternities — another  Barnabee,  and  had  he  chosen  the  stage 
instead  of  the  broader  and  higher  field  of  journalism,  he  would 
have  adorned  and  honored  it. 

Many  were  the  references  he  made  in  his  "Roaming 
Robert"  letters  to  Bill  Nye,  but  his  real  valuation  of 
him  was  written  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  February, 
1896: 

Edgar  Wilson  Nye — so  long  has  his  name  evoked  laughter 
that  a  smile  unconsciously  plays  over  the  lips  of  the  listener 
when  he  is  told  that  the  Jester  lies  dead  in  his  home. 
134 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

To  a  few  of  his  friends  was  accorded  the  privilege  of  enter 
ing  into  the  chambers  of  his  heart,  sacred  to  things  deeper  and 
dearer  than  mirth.  Most  men  required  of  him  mirth,  and, 
true  to  his  mission,  his  work  of  making  the  hearts  of  men  lighter, 
he  laughed  with  them,  and  made  merry  for  them,  whether  his 
own  heart  was  heavy  or  light.  But,  if  one  would  permit  him, 
he  gave  glimpses  of  the  still,  tender  depths  in  his  life,  of  the 
thoughtful,  sympathetic,  loving  side  of  his  character.  And 
thus,  reading  between  the  lines  of  all  that  he  wrote,  having 
had  this  insight  into  the  heart  of  the  real,  true  man,  deep 
respect  and  sincere  love  for  the  man  mingled  with  your  laughing 
admiration  for  the  genius  of  the  humorist. 

One  day  when  the  shadows  of  sorrow  had  drifted  across 
my  own  home,  there  came  to  me  a  letter  from  Nye.  A  long 
letter;  tender  and  sympathetic;  tear-blistered  as  though  the 
face  of  a  woman  had  bent  above  it;  strong  and  sweet  in  its 
consolations — it  came  sobbing  from  the  heart  of  the  real  Edgar 
Wilson  Nye.  Years  ago  that  was,  but  ever  since  that  day, 
whenever  I  have  read  him,  I  have  seen  the  man  behind  the 
humorist;  through  the  laughing  mask  of  the  Jester  I  have 
looked  down  into  the  tender,  earnest  heart,  and  I  have  known 
what  it  was  that  sweetened  all  his  humor  so  that  we  laughed 
with  the  spirit  of  it,  and  no  one  winced  or  quivered  under  any 
sting  from  it. 

God  give  him  rest  and  peace.  So  many  heavy  hearts  he 
has  made  light;  so  many  dark  hours  he  has  brightened;  so 
many  cares  he  has  laughed  away  from  other  lives;  so  much 
of  wearisome  toil  he  has  cheered  with  his  laughter — surely  his 
epitaph  will  be  written  in  sunbeams,  and  his  rest  must  be  in  a 
shadowless  land,  where  men  wear  no  masks,  because  there  are 
no  troubled  hearts  to  hide. 

His  first  visit  with  Mark  Twain  (Samuel  L.  Clemens) 
was  at  the  home  of  the  great  humorist  at  Hartford: 

The  pleasantest  view  I  had  of  the  city  was  from  the  cosy 
fireside  in  that  wonderful  home  of  Mr.  S.  L.  Clemens,  who  was 
my  host  during  my  stay  in  Hartford. 

I  think  I  have  never  been  in  a  home  more  beautifully  home 
like  than  this  palace  of  the  king  of  humorists.  The  surroundings 
of  the  house  are  beautiful,  and  its  quaint  architecture,  broad 

135 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

East  Indian  porticos,  the  Greek  patterns  in  mosaic  in  the  dark- 
red  brick  walls,  attract  and  charm  the  attention  and  good  taste 
of  the  passerby,  for  the  home,  inside  and  out,  is  the  perfection 
of  exquisite  taste  and  harmony.  But  with  all  its  architectural 
beauty  and  originality,  the  elegance  of  its  interior  finish  and 
decorations,  the  greatest  charm  about  the  house  is  the  atmos 
phere  of  "  homelikeness  "  that  pervades  it. 

His  admiration  for  Clemens  increased  with  his 
years.  They  maintained  an  occasional  correspondence, 
and  he  preserved  among  his  papers  the  following  letter 
touching  the  subject  of  plagiarism,  a  subject  of  interest 
to  all  authors,  in  which  Mr.  Clemens  gives  his  unique, 
and  at  the  same  time  sane,  view: 
MY  DEAR  BURDETTE: 

You  will  have  to  ask  me  another.  It  is  reasonably  certain 
that  the  man  stole  the  idea  from  me,  but  I  do  not  remember 
now  who  I  stole  it  from,  and  so  you  cannot  properly  crush  those 
people  who  have  groveled  you  until  we  have  got  all  of  the  sta 
tistics  together.  Necessarily  the  idea  was  not  original  with  me; 
I  never  had  an  original  idea  in  my  life,  and  never  have  met 
anybody  that  had  had  (it  ain't  right  yet,  but  it  is  righter  than 
it  was,  I  reckon).  Nothing  is  ours  but  our  language,  our 
phrasing.  If  a  man  takes  that  from  me  (knowingly,  purposely) 
he  is  a  thief.  If  he  takes  it  unconsciously — snaking  it  out  of 
some  old  secluded  corner  of  his  memory,  and  mistaking  it  for 
a  new  birth  instead  of  a  mummy — he  is  no  thief,  and  no  man 
has  a  case  against  him. 

Unconscious  appropriation  is  utterly  common;  it  is  not 
plagiarism  and  is  no  crime;  but  conscious  appropriation,  i.  e., 
plagiarism,  is  as  rare  as  parricide.  Of  course  there  are  plagiarists 
in  the  world — I  am  not  disputing  that — but  bless  you,  they  are 
few  and  far  between.  These  notions  of  mine  are  not  guesses; 
they  are  the  outcome  of  twenty  years  of  thought  and  observa 
tion  upon  this  subject. 

Religiously  Mr.  Burdette  sought  to  keep  a  daily 
record  of  his  activities  while  on  the  lecture  platform, 
and  religiously,  as  he  admitted  to  himself,  he  failed  to 

136 


LECTURE   PLATFORM 

make  it  consecutive,  so  that  his  diaries  for  the  years 
of  his  platform  activity  abound  with  open  spaces.  The 
first  record  in  his  own  words  of  his  impressions  while 
on  the  platform  appears  in  his  diary  for  1881.  On  a 
western  trip,  which  covered  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Mich 
igan  and  Ohio,  which  latter  state  he  always  held  to  be 
one  of  the  best  for  the  lecturer  in  those  palmy  days  of 
the  Lyceum  course,  he  did  keep  a  consistent  record 
while  on  the  platform  of  the  places  at  which  he  spoke, 
the  lecture  delivered,  the  stories  and  illustrations  used, 
all  indicated  by  a  cipher  of  his  own,  by  which,  upon  his 
return  to  any  place,  he  was  able  to  consult  his  record 
and  discover  just  what  lecture  and  just  what  illustra 
tions  he  had  used  before. 

It  was  his  custom  to  confide  his  impressions  to  ink 
and  paper,  and  many  are  the  natural  human  bits  that 
he  has  set  down,  and  he  set  down  also  in  nearly  every 
case  his  impressions  of  the  particular  audience  to  which 
he  was  speaking.  With  some  audiences  he  was 
delighted,  with  others  disappointed,  admitting  always 
that  perhaps  the  disappointment  was  due  to  him  as 
much  as  to  the  audience,  and  in  some  cases  he  insisted 
that  he  "did  not  know  whether  he  liked  this  particular 
audience  or  not".  And  he  was  to  learn,  as  many 
another  public  speaker,  that  audiences  are  likely  to 
be  as  temperamental  as  artists,  as  is  evidenced  by  this 
comment: 

Audiences  are  just  as  different  as  individuals.  You  never 
can  tell,  by  your  audience  last  night,  what  your  audience 
tonight  will  be  like,  nor  yet  the  one  tomorrow  night.  You 
naturally  expect,  if  you  have  an  alleged  humorous  lecture,  that 
you  will  have  a  good-natured  audience.  But  it  doesn't  follow. 
Last  night  you  had  a  house  that  was  one  continuous  ripple  of 
merriment,  that  infected  you  with  its  own  gayety,  and  made 

137 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

your  talk  easy  for  yourself,  kept  you  up  to  your  work,  and  now 
and  then,  so  to  speak,  carried  you  clear  off  your  feet.  To 
morrow  night  you  may  stand  before  a  house  that  would  make 
an  iceberg  shiver;  cold,  lifeless,  heavy,  and  you  must  work  like 
a  Trojan  to  thaw  it  out.  Maybe  you  succeed.  Maybe  you 
don't.  Generally,  if  there  is  any  life  or  originality  in  yourself 
you  do. 

Then,  sometimes,  you  find  an  audience,  intelligent,  bright 
enough,  willing  to  be  amused,  apparently,  but  to  your  dismay 
you  can't  get  along  with  them.  They  are  not  stupid  or  cold, 
but  they  don't  just  like  you.  It  is  the  worst  of  all  audiences 
to  deal  with.  It  is  so  provokingly  disappointing.  It  promised 
so  much  and  yields  so  little.  It  receives  you  so  warmly  and 
heartily,  and  then  refuses  to  come  any  further  with  you. 

You  can't  have  revenge  on  such  an  audience.  You  can't 
even  feel  angry  with  it.  You  are  only  woefully  disappointed. 

Then  there  is  another  audience.  The  mean,  stupid  audi 
ence.  It  doesn't  hiss  you,  but  you  wish  it  would.  It  doesn't 
intend  to  like  you  from  the  start.  It  just  goes  to  the  hall  for 
the  purpose  of  being  as  mean  and  mulish  as  it  can.  And  it 
does  it.  It  is  a  very  rare  audience.  Lecturers  meet  with  it 
very  seldom,  but  a  man's  experience  on  the  rostrum  would  be 
incomplete  if  he  did  not  have  at  least  one  dose  of  it. 

If  you  are  a  big  man,  a  physical  giant  and  a  mental  Hercules 
like  Mr.  Beecher  or  Colonel  Ingersoll,  you  fight  such  an  audi 
ence  and  pound  it  into  goodness  and  appreciation.  But  if  you 
are  a  light  weight,  if  you  are  just  a  little  fellow,  with  a  little 
funny  lecture,  you  get  mad.  You  pause  long  enough  to  men 
tally  remark  to  your  audience,  "Well,  I'll  bet  you  a  thousand 
dollars  you  can't  hate  me  half  so  much  as  I  hate  you,"  and  then, 
feeling  amply  revenged,  you  go  on  with  your  chatter. 

But  of  one  audience  he  wrote: 

I  could  both  see  and  feel  the  change  of  sentiment  in  the 
audience.  First  thing  I  noticed  was  the  change  of  position — 
a  restless  shifting  in  the  chairs — people  who  were  lolling  in 
absolute  lazy  indifference,  sitting  up — shoulders  straightening — 
head  rising — little  looks  of  surprise  in  the  faces.  Then  the 
fellows  in  dead  opposition — women  and  men — unbending  a 
little — the  two  opposite  poles  coming  together.  Then  the 
138 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

closing  of  the  circuit — the  electric  spark  and  the  explosion! 
As  soon  as  I  saw  them  beginning  to  sit  up  and  lean  towards  me — 
I  knew  I  had  'em,  and  I  put  on  a  forced  draft  that  sent  the 
blue  steam  hissing  out  of  the  cylinders  where  you'd  have 
thought  there  were  no  joints! 

Not  only  the  audience  before  the  footlights  made  its 
impression  on  him,  but  incidents  behind  the  footlights 
as  well. 

Concerning  stage  setting  he  wrote: 

A  great  big  house  crowded  full  of  people,  all  in  their  best 
clothes  and  loveliest  manner.  If  I  had  had  arms  as  long  as  a 
wire  fence  I  would  have  hugged  that  audience.  They  were 
just  determined  that  I  should  have  a  good  Thanksgiving  day. 
Why,  the  young  fellow  who  set  the  stage — and  he  is  an  artist — 
had  gone  to  no  end  of  trouble  and  ingenuity  to  make  a  picture 
of  that  stage  that  was  just  too  charming  for  anything.  That 
stage  added  fifty  per  cent  to  the  lecture.  Every  now  and  then, 
when  I  strike  a  hall  man  who  thinks  any  stage  is  good  enough 
for  a  lecture,  and  sends  me  out  before  a  well  dressed  and  intelli 
gent  audience,  and  makes  me  talk  in  a  minstrel  kitchen  scene, 
with  a  flitch  of  bacon  and  a  smoked  jowl  hanging  against  the 
wall  behind  me,  and  a  candle  stuck  in  a  bottle  on  the  mantel 
piece,  and  the  plastering  all  broken  from  the  walls,  I  think  of 
that  stage  in  the  opera  house  at  Terre  Haute,  and  wish  the 
manager  would  send  the  young  artist  who  set  it,  around  this 
country  on  a  missionary  tour  among  other  hall  men. 

Travel  by  rail  in  those  days  was  not  the  matter  of 
luxury  and  comfort  it  is  today.  Trains  were  few,  con 
nections  bad,  and  many  a  weary  hour  was  spent  in  the 
cold  and  storm  waiting  at  a  junction  for  a  delayed  train, 
or  making  his  pilgrimage  by  the  "way  freight". 
The  discipline  of  his  war  training,  and  the  health  he 
brought  out  of  it,  stood  him  in  good  stead  in  these  try 
ing  circumstances,  where  cold,  exposure,  irregular  meals 
and  other  hardships  would  have  put  a  less  vigorous 
man  upon  his  back  in  the  hospital.  He  himself 

139 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

suffered  enough  through  his  throat,  which,  all  his  life, 
gave  him  concern,  and  not  infrequently  necessitated 
the  omission  of  a  lecture  and  medical  treatment  in  the 
interval. 

It  was  his  joy  always  to  find  among  his  audience 
persons  whom  he  had  known  in  the  boyhood  days  at 
Peoria.  For  instance,  an  entry  in  his  diary  from 
Kalamazoo,  Mich.: 

My  dear  old  teacher,  the  only  one  I  ever  loved,  A.  D.  Fitch, 
lives  here,  and  he  introduced  me. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  his  disposition  to 
idealize  that  with  which  he  had  been  thrown  in  affec 
tionate  contact,  colored  his  statement  here,  for  cer 
tainly  in  his  after  years  he  evidenced  the  greatest 
affection  for  his  beloved  Ephraim  Hinman. 

Sometimes  too  he  found  it  possible,  without  a  too 
great  injury  to  his  conscientious  devotion  to  duty,  to 
"miss"  a  town.  In  January,  1881,  he  says: 

I  just  naturally  did  not  get  to  Lansing  by  24  hours.  Missed 
it  awfully.  Am  sorry,  but  I  am  never  very  anxious  to  lecture 
in  a  State  capital.  Too  many  politicians,  and  your  average 
politician  does  not  attend  lectures.  He  is  a  bird  of  prey  and 
attends  caucuses. 

"A  scattered  audience "  was  his  bete  noir,  because 
he  said  it  was  impossible  to  talk  either  seriously  or 
humorously  to  that  kind  of  a  gathering,  and  on  one 
occasion  when  an  audience  was  distinctly  "scattered", 
he  invited  them  into  a  corner,  where  an  old-fashioned 
wood  stove  blazed,  and  sitting  among  them,  he  deliv 
ered  what  was  half  a  lecture  and  half  a  fireside  discourse. 
He  was  quick  to  see  the  humorous  side  of  every  incident 
of  his  lecture  life.  In  one  case  he  says: 

140 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

A  good  old  sister  in  the  audience  filled  me  full  of  messages 
to  her  friends  and  relatives  in  Burlington,  Vermont,  and  then 
was  angry  because  I  did  not  live  there,  but  in  Burlington,  Iowa. 

His  lectures  were  not  set,  but  elastic,  and  the  length 
of  them  depended  upon  many  circumstances.  In  one 
little  Ohio  town  he  says: 

I  talked  two  and  one-half  hours,  because  it  rained  so  hard 
the  people  would  not  go  out  of  the  hall. 

New  England  railroad  connections  in  those  days 
were  fearful  and  wonderful  to  him,  and  in  speaking  of 
his  failure  to  reach  a  New  Hampshire  village,  his  diary 
shows  this  entry: 

To  meet  the  connections  of  the  fearful  and  wonderful  New 
England  system  of  railroads,  it  was  necessary  that  I  should 
drive  from  Bath  to  Brunswick  after  a  lecture,  nine  miles  of 
miserable  roads.  I  did  not  do  it.  I  have  had  enough  experi 
ence  with  New  England  drivers  to  last  me  through  the  season, 
so  I  drove  to  bed  and  let  Lisbon  drive  ahead  without  me. 
Sorry,  but  I  cannot  always  drive  all  night  to  make  up  for  rail 
road  deficiencies. 

Echoes  in  a  lecture  hall  or  church  were  one  of  his 
pet  abominations.  An  Ohio  church  he  refers  to  as  "a 
beautiful  church,  very  large,  and  containing  7,216 
echoes." 

The  after-lecture  visitations,  to  which  in  nearly 
every  town  he  was  subjected,  were  things  he  dreaded, 
although  he  was  apparently  very  joyous  and  good 
natured  with  those  who  came  to  help  him  while  away 
the  midnight  hour.  On  some  occasions,  however,  he 
deliberately  shut  himself  away,  because,  as  he  said  in 
one  entry,  "I  am  too  tired  to  talk  more  than  eighteen 
hours  a  day/' 

Once  he  wrote  in  late  May: 

141 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

I  am  tired  to  death.  I  have  talked  about  six  nights 
every  week,  ever  since  the  9th  of  January;  I  have  sat  up  until 
one  or  two  o'clock  A.  M.  entertaining  people  after  the  lecture, 
and  then  been  called  for  6  o'clock  trains;  I  have  visited  32  coal 
mines,  inspected  53  coke  ovens,  gone  through  67  iron  works, 
visited  93  schools,  admired  118  handsome  churches,  gorged 
myself  at  120  banquets,  walked  through  173  wagon  shops  and 
29  pump  factories;  walked  up  and  down  and  up  and  down  the 
long  streets  of  198  towns  and  admired  everything  I  saw;  I 
have  climbed  eighty-six  endless  hills  to  gaze  at  eighty-six  views 
that  "  Bayard  Taylor  said,  when  he  was  here,  was  far  superior 
to  anything  he  saw  in  Europe";  I  have  taken  my  nose  in  my 
hand  and  lounged  through  two  gove  factories,  five  tanneries 
and  three  fertilizer  works;  three  weeks  ago,  I  lectured  Saturday 
night,  sat  up  and  talked  with  friends  until  two  A.  M.,  got  up  to 
a  seven  o'clock  breakfast,  went  to  church  with  friends  at  10.30 
A.  M.  lunched  with  some  other  friends  at  12;  went  to  Sabbath 
school  at  2;  sat  in  the  Bible  class  and  made  a  nice  little  speech 
to  the  children,  dined  with  some  other  friends  at  5,  attended 
evening  service  at  7.30,  went  to  a  friend's  house  after  service, 
and  when  we  broke  up  at  11.30  because  I  had  to  take  a  train  at 
4.15  A.  M.,  a  good  old  brother  shook  my  hand  warmly  and  said, 
"  Well,  well,  we's  all  glad  to  have  met  you.  And  you've  had  a 
good  long  rest  here  with  us  and  you'll  feel  fresh  for  your  week's 
work.  ..." 

I  don't  complain  a  bit.  All  the  people  I  have  met  are  lovely 
and  lovable  people,  and  they  do  their  best  to  make  me  have  a 
good  time,  but  seven  good  times  a  week  for  six  months  is  too 
much  for  one  man  to  stand. 

That  he  remained  so  long  in  favor  with  the  lecture 
bureau  was  due  in  no  small  degree  to  his  determination 
to  keep  engagements  no  matter  what  it  cost  him  in 
personal  effort  or  money.  I  have  known  him  to  spend 
$125.00  for  a  special  train  to  meet  a  $100.00  engage 
ment. 

The  strenuousness  of  lecture  travel  is  indicated  by 
running  comment  in  one  of  his  letters  home  during  a 
lecture  trip,  in  which  he  says: 
142 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

Then  at  last  we  got  off  at  Granville.  Wrote  you  about  a 
sudden  change  of  time  at  Bucyrus.  Hired  a  team,  drove  thir 
teen  miles  to  Galion.  Got  there  in  time  to  catch  3.08  train 
for  Columbus. 

It  had  been  taken  off!  November  is  the  month  in  which 
the  roads  change  to  their  winter  arrangement,  you  know. 
Hired  a  special  on  the  "Big  4" — engine  and  coach — to  take  us 
to  Columbus — $75.  Got  to  Columbus  on  time.  Train  on 
B.  &  0.  for  Newark  had  changed  time!  Left  a  half  hour  later 
than  the  schedule  said.  Got  supper.  Got  train  at  6.30  P.  M. 
Got  to  Newark  at  7.30.  Trolley  to  Granville — eight  miles. 
Got  there  8.10.  Dressed.  Shaved.  Audience  waiting.  On 
platform  at  8.30.  Storm  of  applause.  Committee  had  read 
my  telegrams  to  them,  and  explained  how  hard  I  was  trying  to 
get  there.  Biggest  audience  Granville  ever  sent  out  to  a  lec 
ture.  Great  success.  Nearly  $100  taken  at  door  as  extra  sales. 

Chas.  L.  Williams  and  wife  (Upland)  wanted  me  to  go 
home  with  them,  but  couldn't  that  night.  Went  to  chapel  in 
the  morning.  Talked;  conducted  chapel  service.  (Denison 
University.)  Went  to  Williamses.  Called  on  Purintons. 
Dinner  at  W/s,  manager  and  self.  Now  en  route  for  Marlette. 

His  diaries  are  filled  with  intimate  and  humorous 
reflections  touching  men  and  things,  and  he  seemed  to 
be  particularly  joyous  when  he  could  set  down  some 
thing  in  the  nature  of  a  joke  upon  himself.  Thus  in 
one  instance: 

Got  here  at  noon.  Pleasant  weather.  Pleasant  boarding- 
house  hotel.  Parlor  and  bedroom  with — wood  stove.  When 
I  opened  my  valise,  left  dress  suit  trousers  at  home.  Horror! 
Bought  a  pair  for  $4.50.  Legs  seven  inches  too  long.  Had 
them  fixed.  Wore  'em.  All  right.  Don't  just  match  coat 
and  vest,  but  dress  suit  trousers  cost  $16.00. 

And  again: 

Got  to  bed  about  1  A.  M.  with  the  pleasant  prospect  of 
sleeping  till  9  if  I  wanted  to.  Later — wanted  to. 

There  are  also  numerous  impressions  of  his  close 
and  beloved  personal  friends,  to  meet  whom  repeatedly 

143 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

was  one  of  the  joys  of  his  platform  life.  An  entry  from 
Peoria,  Kan.,  reads: 

Dined  with  Wm.  A.  White  of  the  Emporia  Gazette,  and  his 
business  manager,  Mr.  Smucker,  a  Pennsylvanian.  White's 
wife  was  away  from  home  in  Topeka,  and  his  mother  presided 
over  the  feast.  He  is  a  very  engaging  fellow,  with  the  pleasant 
habit  of  laughing  at  a  thing  at  broken  intervals  a  long  time 
after  it  has  been  said.  It  is  pleasant  in  him.  It  would  be 
horrible  if  it  were  imitated.  Good  thing  for  a  sketch. 

Of  Noble  Prentiss  he  writes: 

Always  an  inspiration  when  in  my  audience,  and  he  re 
mained  three  delightful  hours  with  me  at  Kansas  City  telling 
stories. 

Hotels  were  different  in  those  days,  and  at  Paola, 
Kan.,  he  notes: 

Hotel  delightfully  old-fashioned.  Landlord  Grimston 
carves  and  serves  at  his  table.  Everything  was  delightfully 
home  like. 

At  Rockwell  City,  Iowa,  he  writes  of 

,  the  attorney  who  insists  on  remembering  me  most  inti 
mately  when  I  lived  in  Osceola,  Iowa.  As  I  never  lived  there 
I  tried  to  discourage  him,  but  it  was  no  good,  so  I  finally  remem 
bered  him  as  the  oldest  and  dearest  friend  of  my  boyhood. 

Writing  from  an  Ohio  town,  he  makes  this  comment: 

The  Baptist  preacher  said  he  had  been  offered  double  the 
salary  he  was  getting,  and  all  his  expenses,  to  go  with  a  show 
as  an  advance  agent.  I  thought,  after  hearing  him  preach, 
that  it  was  his  solemn  duty  to  go. 

And  after  being  " entertained"  at  a  private  home 
by  delightful  friends  who  kept  him  up  until  after  the 
midnight  hour,  when  he  was  exhausted  from  a  hard 
day's  travel  and  a  long  lecture,  he  wrote  of  the  following 
morning: 
144 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  OF  THE  "ROAMING  ROBERT"  LETTERS 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

Dragged  myself  out  of  bed,  wishing  I  had  lied  about  some 
mysterious  engagement  and  gone  away  at  midnight.  Wish  I 
had  run  away  at  midnight  anyhow.  Couldn't.  Overcoat 
downstairs  and  valise  too  heavy  to  drop  out  of  the  window. 

Of  a  train  visitor  who  insisted  upon  whiling  away 
the  hours  of  travel,  his  diary  shows  this  entry: 

She  whiled  away  the  hours  to  Kansas  City  with  sprightly 
converse.  My  ears  were  cold  and  swollen  and  numb  when  we 
got  there.  I  thought  that  once  or  twice  death  would  come  to 
my  release,  but  he  sent  his  excuses.  He  said  he  knew  the  party. 

It  was  his  custom,  too,  on  his  travels,  to  seek 
wherever  he  could  find  material  for  his  newspaper 
work,  and  frequently  he  found  this  in  an  unusual  way. 
Writing  in  the  winter  of  1890,  he  says: 

Went  out  for  a  long  walk  after  breakfast.  Dropped  in  on 
a  little  United  Brethren  Church,  attracted  by  the  loudest 
preaching  I  have  heard  for  a  long  time.  (Preacher  a  young 
man.)  After  service  we  all  walked  through  the  snow  and  the 
woods  to  the  river,  where,  amid  the  floating  ice,  one  old  woman, 
three  young  women,  three  little  girls  and  one  little  boy  were 
baptized,  after  the  U.  B.  form,  the  candidates  kneeling  in  the 
water  and  being  immersed  face  forward  three  times.  The 
young  minister  was  in  the  icy  water  twenty-eight  minutes. 

His  old  army  comrades  were  always  a  source  of 
inspiration  to  him,  and  in  an  Ohio  village — 

came  down  from  Castalia  as  usual.     Camp  fire  of  course, 

and  a  good  deal  of  the  night  consumed  in  the  same  old  army 

talk.     Long  letter  from ,  who  wants  a  pension  because  he 

fell  off  his  horse,  and  another  from  an  old  comrade  who  wants 
one  because  his  horse  fell  on  him,  all  of  which  proves  that  men 
ought  to  learn  to  ride  before  they  go  into  the  army. 

In  a  Pennsylvania  village  he  had  an  experience, 
which  is  thus  noted: 

Lectured  in  Presbyterian  Church,  new  and  very  handsome. 

Some  opposition  to  a  "funny  lecture"  in  it.    Good  sister  came 

10  145 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

down  in  the  afternoon  and  moved  the  pulpit  away  lest  I  should 
desecrate  it,  so  the  pulpit  is  all  right.  Did  not  hurt  me,  so  I 
am  all  right. 

After  some  dozen  years  on  the  lecture  platform,  he 
reviews  the  hardships  on  the  road  in  his  own  inimitable 
way: 

The  lecturer  is  a  cricket  who  sings  merrily  during  the  winter, 
while  the  greedy  ant,  virtuous  little  prig,  is  gorging  itself  with 
the  dried  flies  and  grasshopper  legs  and  cracker  crumbs  amassed 
by  incessant  toil  all  summer,  and  stored  away  in  the  ground  for 
winter  use.  How  much  better  is  it  to  play  all  winter  and  loaf 
all  summer!  Let  us  see  how  much  "fun"  the  ant  misses  by 
not  being  a  cricket. 

It  is  a  model  winter  morning  at  a  model  country  station. 
The  committee  that  met  the  lecturer  at  the  noon  train  the  day 
preceding,  took  his  valise,  escorted  him  to  the  carriage  by  each 
elbow,  and  followed  him  to  his  room  to  see  that  the  chair  was 
there,  and  the  bed,  and  the  towel,  and  the  block  of  galvanized 
soap,  does  not  turn  out  to  see  him  off  on  the  train  that  is  due 
to  leave  at  4.30  A.  M.  in  bleak  December.  I  admire  the  com 
mittee  for  its  display  of  excellent  judgment.  I,  too,  lift  up 
my  voice  against  the  early  train  of  incense-breathing  morn. 
The  world  doesn't  look  right  in  the  dim  gray  light  of  super- 
early  dawn.  It  turns  round  too  fast,  and  in  the  cold  and  cheer 
less  winter  time  it  is  enough  to  make  a  man  with  the  spirit  of 
a  martyr  tired.  All  its  angles  stick  out;  its  friendships,  which 
were  eternal  at  10.30  P.  M.,  are  hollow  mockeries  when  the  red- 
faced  sun  is  lazily  yawning  his  way  out  of  bed.  The  lamps 
that  burned  with  a  mellow  glow,  with  song  and  mirth  in  their 
radiance  when  the  night  was  young,  sputter  and  smoke  and 
smell  bad  when  the  rosy-fingered  hours  take  their  places  for 
the  Daylight  Gallop. 

Patience  is  set  on  a  hair  trigger,  ready  to  go  off  at  a  touch. 
There  is  no  'bus  for  the  train,  and  the  porter  doesn't  go  to  meet 
it.  You  carry  your  own  valise,  and  as  you  stumble  and  grope 
your  way  along  the  unlighted  street,  through  new-laid  drifts 
of  beautiful  snow,  you  resolve  for  the  hundredth  time  that 
when  this  season  is  over  you  wouldn't  lecture  again  for  a  hun- 
146 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

dred  dollars  a  minute.  And  when  the  cricket  runs  over  a  saw- 
buck  and  gets  tangled  up  in  a  buggy  wheel  and  a  broken  sleigh- 
runner  in  front  of  the  wagon  shop,  and  discovers  forty  yards 
farther  on  that  he  has  lost  one  overshoe  in  the  scuffle,  he  sighs 
with  envy  as  he  thinks  of  the  industrious  ant,  calmly  dreaming 
the  happy  hours  away  in  his  little  granary,  ready  to  eat  his 
blankets  as  soon  as  he  awakes  without  the  trouble  of  lighting 
a  fire  or  putting  on  the  kettle,  while  he  prudently  saves  his 
mattress  for  dinner,  when  he  may  have  company. 

At  the  station,  the  operator  at  the  telegraph  table  is  pale 
and  tired,  and  so  jaded  with  his  night-long  vigil  that  he  has  lost 
all  power  of  speech  and  can  only  feebly  articulate  "I  d'no"  to 
all  questions,  and  you  believe  him.  You  will  believe  anything 
at  that  unearthly  hour,  unless  it  be  something  reasonable. 
The  fire  is  low-spirited,  and  when  it  is  not  watched  makes 
desperate  efforts  to  commit  suicide  by  freezing  itself  to  death. 
The  room  is  cold,  and  so  dark  that  no  one  can  see  the  pro 
hibitory  sign  "No  smoking",  and  if  their  attention  is  called 
to  it,  they  sniff  contemptuously,  and  smoke  "nigger-head" 
tobacco  in  original  packages,  in  ancient  and  loud-scented  pipes 
that  would  poison  the  deadly  upas-tree.  The  train  is  late,  and 
when  the  operator  gets  tired  saying  "I  d'no",  he  slams  his 
little  wicket  in  our  faces,  and  stony  despair  settles  down  upon 
every  heart.  The  sun  gets  up  high  enough  to  look  into  the 
dismal  waiting  room,  and  with  a  perceptible  shudder  pulls  a 
great  black  cloud  over  his  head,  as  though  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  not  to  get  up  until  the  day  was  farther  advanced  and  a 
little  warmer.  Only  one  man  comes  into  the  room  who  isn't 
cross  as  a  janitor.  He  is  smiling,  merry,  and  sunny-tempered, 
with  a  cheery  word  of  greeting  that  ought  to  melt  the  heart  of 
an  iceberg.  The  only  effect  it  has  on  the  crowd  of  sullen,  half- 
frozen  passengers  is  to  create  the  impression  that  he  has  been 
drinking.  The  icy  glares  which  fall  upon  the  missionary  of 
sunshine  from  every  face  soon  worry  him  into  silence  and  glum- 
ness,  and  before  the  train  comes  along  we  manage  to  make  him 
the  Grossest  man  in  the  herd,  and  he  sasses  a  minister  of  the 
gospel  and  snubs  a  sweet  young  lady  with  a  red  nose  and  a 
music  roll. 

The  train  comes  jolting  along  at  last.  The  cars  are  some 
what  colder  than  the  waiting  room,  but  they  are  in  motion. 

147 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

It  reaches  the  dining  station,  and  everybody  except  the  lecturer 
has  twenty  minutes  for  breakfast.  The  train  he  is  to  take  at 
this  junction  has  been  waiting  forty-five  minutes  for  the  one 
he  is  on,  and  "pulls  out"  right  away.  He  then  looks  at  the 
crowd  of  passengers  thronging  into  the  dining  room,  whence 
issues  a  fragrant  incense  of  steaming  coffee  and  juicy  steak, 
and  thanking  heaven  quite  audibly  that  he  is  not  a  glutton, 
as  other  men  are,  climbs  wearily  on  the  Whoa,  Haw  and  Gee 
train  to  fast  and  meditate.  When  the  train  boy  comes  along, 
he  asks  him  if  he  has  any  sandwiches.  He  has  "all  the  latest 
popular  novels,  choice  bound-books,  Harper's  for  December, 
Century,  Frank  Leslie's,  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  Puckcwm  the 
Judge".  All  good,  but  none  edible.  However,  he  manages  to 
find  in  a  dark  corner  of  his  box  some  Smyrna  figs,  taken  from 
the  haversacks  of  Egyptian  mummies  who  are  supposed  to 
have  died  of  starvation  while  pursuing  the  Israelites — figs  were 
so  old  then  the  soldiers  couldn't  eat  'em — and  these  relics  of  a 
lost  age  keep  life  in  the  lecturer's  body  and  revive  hope  in  his 
heart.  "Where  do  we  dine,  conductor?"  "At  Corduroy 
crossing,  2.35  p.  M."  Hope  shrieks  feebly  and  skips  the  ranch, 
because  the  lecturer  changes  cars  at  Poplar  Bridge,  at  11.47 
A.  M.,  fifty  miles  this  side  of  Corduroy. 

A  numbness  falls  upon  his  frame,  and  sleep,  sweet  angel, 
comes  to  steep  his  senses  in  oblivion,  but  before  she  can  score, 
the  "talking  man"  comes  along  and  sits  down  by  his  side, 
"to  pass  the  time".  He  could  pass  eternity  just  as  easily.  He 
begins  by  telling  his  private  affairs  and  family  business  to  a 
man  whom  he  never  saw  before  in  all  his  life.  I  never  yet  got 
on  a  train  that  I  didn't  hear  somebody's  family  history.  This 
man  tells  about  a  trip  he  once  made  to  Europe;  began  with  a 
letter  he  got  from  his  uncle  asking  him  to  go  with  him;  told 
all  about  the  business  which  called  his  uncle  to  Europe,  and 
some  of  the  business  was  of  such  a  character  that  if  it  had  been 
my  uncle,  I  would  have  lied  about  it,  and  said  it  was  my  brother 
Ben's  uncle,  and  I  have  no  brother  Ben;  but  no;  this  man 
told  me  all  about  it;  what  he  thought  when  he  got  the  letter, 
how  he  happened  to  go  to  the  post  office  that  morning,  what  he 
said  to  the  clerk,  and  what  the  clerk  said  to  him;  who  the  clerk 
was;  how  he  came  to  marry  a  second  time,  and  who  his  sister 
married;  wondered  if  I  knew  his  sister's  husband,  and  when  I 

148 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

said  I  didn't,  he  said  he  reckoned  not;  told  the  street  he  lived 
on  and  why  he  never  wore  a  stiff  hat;  where  he  used  to  live 
and  why  he  moved;  who  lived  in  his  old  house  now,  the  sort 
of  people  they  were  and  why  he  didn't  like  them;  why  he 
thought  his  wife  didn't  really  quite  appreciate  him,  and  why 
he  thought  she  was  too  cold  and  took  too  little  interest  in  his 
business.  Much  more  information  than  this  would  have  been 
poured  into  my  sleepy  ears  had  we  not  reached  Poplar  Bridge 
just  before  I  died. 

That's  all  there  is  at  Poplar  Bridge — just  the  bridge  and 
another  railroad.  The  train  comes  along  after  three  o'clock; 
and  the  lecturer  has  time  to  go  to  a  farm  house  about  a  mile 
away  and  dine  with  a  voracity  that  frightens  the  children. 
The  weather  moderates;  it  grows  warmer  until  it  begins  to 
rain  and  puts  road,  street,  and  sidewalk  in  beautiful  condition 
for  a  lecture  night,  snow,  slush,  slop,  and  rain.  The  horrible 
weather  detains  the  train.  At  7.45  the  lecturer  reaches  his 
station,  and  is  met  by  a  heart-broken,  despondent  committee, 
who  tell  him  they  have  had  just  this  sort  of  weather  for  every 
lecture  in  the  course  with  the  exception  of  the  night  Colonel 
Sawpit  was  to  lecture  on  the  Battle  of  Bunkerloo,  with  stereop- 
ticon  illustrations.  That  was  the  loveliest  night  of  the  winter; 
clear  as  a  bell,  full  moon,  good  sleighing,  special  train  from 
Grigsby  station,  hall  jammed  to  the  doors,  and  reserved  seats 
sold  clean  up  into  the  gallery;  and  about  half -past  eight  o'clock 
a  telegram  came  saying  the  colonel  had  missed  connection  at 
Poplar  Bridge  and  couldn't  get  through. 

With  this  cheerful  greeting  the  lecturer  climbs  into  the 
crowded  'bus,  gets  to  the  hotel,  shaves  himself,  dresses,  and  is 
in  the  hall  tired,  dejected,  and  supperless  in  twenty  minutes. 
The  scanty  audience  feels  the  dispiriting  influence  of  the  weather 
and  empty  benches.  Nobody  wants  to  laugh;  the  members  of 
the  lecture  association  are  especially  downcast;  the  hall  man, 
anxious  lest  he  may  not  get  his  rent,  and  wisely  determining  to 
lose  as  little  as  possible,  saves  on  his  gas,  and  glooms  the  light 
in  the  hall  down  to  the  dim  religious  glimmer  of  a  tallow-candle 
illumination.  The  chairman,  in  his  dejection,  forgets  his  intro 
ductory  speech,  and  gets  the  lecturer's  name  wrong.  Ordinarily 
this  is  a  happy  thing,  because  it  makes  the  people  laugh  at  the 
chairman  and  puts  them  into  a  good  humor;  but  on  this  kind 

149 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

of  night  everybody  resents  it;  the  women  look  scornful  and  the 
men  frown,  and  the  prominent  citizen,  who  thinks  (and  tells 
you  in  confidence  that  everybody  else  thinks)  that  he  should 
have  been  asked  to  introduce  the  speaker,  makes  audible  and 
sarcastic  comment  on  the  "bad  break",  saying  that  "old 
Newelpost  couldn't  tell  his  own  name  if  it  wasn't  printed  on 
the  programme". 

The  lecturer  rises,  smiling  without  an  effort — there  is 
something  irresistibly  comical  in  the  spectacle  of  a  dispirited 
audience,  thinly  scattered  about  a  gloomy  hall,  grimly  listening 
to  a  humorous  lecture.  He  postpones  his  opening  pleasantries— 
there's  never  any  hurry  about  "jokes" — and  when  he  has 
soothed  the  audience  as  you  would  coax  a  balky  horse  into 
forgetfulness  of  his  worry  or  perplexity,  he  lets  off  the  first 
joke.  It  is  damp,  like  everything  else,  and  is  an  utter  failure. 
The  next  one  falls  flat  as  a  presentation  speech.  The  one  after 
that  is  drawn  a  little  too  fine,  and  excites  only  bewilderment. 
A  few  more  skirmishing  jests  are  sacrificed  on  the  clammy  altars 
of  an  "off  night",  and  the  lecturer  begins  to  realize  that  unless 
something  is  done  very  speedily  and  very  successfully,  the  battle 
is  lost.  He  abandons  the  lecture  for  a  moment  and  tells  a 
story.  As  a  rule,  people  like  to  hear  stories  when  they  won't 
listen  to  anything  else.  The  story  is  too  old  or  too  new,  too 
long  or  too  pointless,  or  something,  and  people  look  tired  and 
scornful. 

Then  he  returns  to  his  lecture  and  calls  up  his  reserves. 
He  hurries  to  the  front  an  old  veteran,  a  joke  that  has  rarely 
failed,  save  on  nights  that  from  the  beginning  of  time  were 
fore-ordained  to  gloomy  disaster,  and  hurls  it  upon  the  invinci 
ble  phalanx  of  set  lips  and  frowning  brows  before  him.  Vain 
hope!  The  Old  Guard  recoils;  the  glittering  joke  of  a  hundred 
nights  of  light  and  revelry  spreads  its  bright  pinions  in  the 
smoky  glare  of  the  flickering  footlights,  which  flame  "no  light, 
but  only  darkness  visible,"  and  then,  lost  in  the  fog  and  cold 
and  general  dejection,  falls  into  the  slough  of  despond  to 
flounder  to  a  martyr's  death. 

"0  dark,  dark,  dark,  amid  the  blaze  of  noon, 
Irrevocably  dark,  total  eclipse, 
Without  all  hope  of  day. 

150 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

"Of  comfort  no  man  speaks; 
Let's  talk  of  graves,  of  worms,  and  epitaphs." 

Unlaughed  at,  unmourned,  unremembered,  save  by  its 
sorrowing  parent,  the  brightest  joke  of  all  the  sunny  flock  is 
lost  in  the  common  doom.  Woe,  then,  be  to  the  lecturer  who 
reads,  and  has  to  wade  on  through  his  manuscript  clear  to  the 
far-away  end.  The  man  who  talks  knows  that  his  lecture  is 
ended  then  and  there.  He  goes  on,  to  fill  up  a  certain  length 
of  time,  but  he  makes  the  time  to  suit  the  temper  of  his  audi 
ence,  and  so  his  lecture  is  two  hours  short  or  fifty  minutes  long, 
as  the  case  may  be.  He  tells  no  more  jokes  on  the  Waterloo 
night.  He  moralizes,  philosophizes,  speaks  "sarkastical",  and 
tells  stories,  but  his  lecture  is  a  funeral  oration  over  his  own 
failure,  and  that  pleases  the  audience  better,  under  the  circum 
stances,  than  anything  else.  When  a  man  is  tired,  and  cold, 
and  damp,  and  cross,  and  didn't  want  to  come  to  the  lecture 
anyhow,  but  was  fairly  dragged  there  by  his  wife,  who  was 
tired  of  being  in  the  house  all  day,  he  doesn't  want  to  be  pleased ; 
it  is  his  humor  to  be  cross  and  disagreeable,  and  the  crosser 
you  can  make  him  feel  the  better  he  likes  it,  until,  paradoxical 
as  it  may  appear,  he  sometimes  fairly  scolds  himself  into  a 
good  humor. 

If  a  man  talks  long  enough  and  patiently  enough,  half- 
past  nine  or  ten  o'clock  will  come  around  some  time  the  same 
night.  It  is  Saturday  night,  too,  and  he  is  buoyed  up  by  the 
blessed  hope  of  a  Sabbath  of  rest,  for  it  has  been  a  busy  week, 
with  every  day  full  of  long  trips  and  every  night  full  of  lecture. 
He  finally  bows  himself  off  the  platform,  followed  by  a  feeble 
sputter  of  applause  which  testifies  the  general  joy  at  the  hour 
of  release.  The  chairman  detains  the  impatient  audience  long 
enough  to  announce  that  the  speaker  of  the  evening,  having 
decided  to  remain  in  town  for  his  Sunday  rest,  has  kindly  con 
sented  to  preach  in  the  First  Baptist  Church  tomorrow  morning 
at  10.30,  and  will  also  address  the  young  men  at  the  meeting 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  and  will  preach  in  the  Zion  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  at  7.30  in  the  evening.  The  audience  then  escapes; 
the  lecturer  learns  that  there  is  no  place  open  at  that  hour 
where  he  can  get  supper,  whereupon  he  placidly  lies  and  smil- 

151 


ROBERT   J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

ingly  says  he  isn't  hungry  anyhow;  a  few  friends,  remarking 
that  they  don't  suppose  he  can  go  to  sleep  immediately  after 
lecturing,  attend  him  to  his  room  in  the  hotel,  which  they  fill 
with  tobacco  smoke,  while  they  encourage  him  to  tell  stories 
and  give  recitations  until  twelve  o'clock,  when  the  approach  of 
Sunday  morning  breaks  up  the  party.  The  lecturer  crawls  into 
bed,  honestly  hoping  as  he  groans  his  way  under  the  blankets 
that  he  may  never  awaken  again  if  once  he  can  get  to  sleep, 
which  impious  aspiration  is  rudely  negatived  by  the  youngest 
man  in  the  party,  who  comes  thundering  at  his  door  next  morn 
ing,  at  7  o'clock,  bright  as  a  lark,  bringing  a  couple  of  autograph 
albums  and  a  cigar  six  inches  long,  stronger  than  the  memory 
of  a  wasted  life;  and  what's  more,  he  is  a  little  hurt  if  the  lec 
turer  declines  to  sit  up  in  bed  right  away  and  smoke  it  to  the 
bitter  end,  which  is  both  ends.  He  gets  through  the  services 
of  the  "Rest  Day",  half  a  dozen  strangers  are  invited  to  meet 
him  at  dinner,  as  many  more  at  tea,  after  the  evening  service 
he  is  taken  to  call  for  "just  a  few  minutes"  upon  "a  most 
influential  and  charming  family",  that  didn't  find  time  to 
attend  any  one  of  his  four  or  five  public  appearances,  and  at 
last  he  gets  to  bed,  taking  enough  time  from  his  evening  prayers 
to  write  to  his  Lecture  Bureau  that  next  season  the  fee  for  that 
town  is  to  be  $250,  with  $50  extra  for  an  afterpiece. 

This  is  the  "shady  side"  of  lecturing,  and  it  is  no  exagger 
ation.  In  fact,  the  hardest  trips  have  not  been  drawn  on  for 
this  sketch,  as  any  lecturer  can  testify.  I  have  known  a  lec 
turer  to  take  a  train  immediately  after  his  entertainment,  ride 
all  night,  changing  cars  twice,  with  never  a  ghost  of  a  chance 
for  a  sleeper,  ride  all  next  day,  part  of  the  time  on  a  freight 
train,  reach  the  lecture  point  at  8  P.  M.,  go  from  the  train  to  the 
hall,  grimy,  unshaven,  supperless,  faint  with  fatigue,  giddy  with 
fasting  and  loss  of  sleep,  and  then  take  a  train  at  eleven  o'clock 
the  same  night  for  "anywhere"  just  to  avoid  a  "reception", 
because  somebody  would  get  mad  if  he  stayed  in  town  and 
declined  it.  There  is  lots  of  "fun"  in  humorous  lecturing, 
but  the  lecturer  doesn't  have  all  of  it  himself. 

While  lecturing  had  its  difficult  side  and  its  hard 
ships,  it  had,  as  well,  its  element  of  growth  and  develop 
ment,  both  more  rapid  than  possibly  Mr.  Burdette  him- 
152 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

self  realized.  Continued  and  intimate  contact  with 
humanity  ripened  and  developed  his  naturally  sympa 
thetic  and  affectionate  nature.  In  the 'early  years  of 
his  newspaper  work  his  humor  was  buoyant,  jubilant 
and  effervescent.  Indeed,  he  himself  admits  that  the 
humorous  phase  of  every  subject  had  its  instant  appeal 
to  his  fancy,  but  with  travel,  deeper  experience  and 
his  intimate  sorrow,  came  a  more  serious  and  reflective 
period  in  his  life  and  work.  He  came  to  look  upon 
humor  as  a  means  and  not  as  an  end,  and  he  began  to 
see  that  it  was  his  mission  to  make  people  cheerful  and 
to  make  hearts  tender  and  sympathetic,  rather  than 
merely  to  bring  the  laugh  to  the  lips  of  the  unthinking. 

The  three  books  which  he  said  gave  him  the 
foundation  for  this  more  serious  work,  were  the  Bible, 
Shakespeare  and  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  he  was  equally 
familiar  with  each.  Each  he  had  read  and  re-read 
until  he  quoted  copiously  and  at  will. 

His  first  lecture  was  followed  quickly  by  two  others, 
"Home"  and  "The  Pilgrimage  of  the  Funny  Man". 
This  third  lecture  was  a  humorous  and  philosophical 
reflection  upon  his  own  observations  of  people.  A  quo 
tation  from  it  shows  the  broadening  effect  of  human 
contact,  and  shows  also  his  adaptation  in  many  in 
stances  of  the  style  of  Bunyan: 

Now  it  did  not  all  go  well  with  the  Funny  Man  in  his 
pilgrimage.  Some  of  the  sorrow  in  the  world  seemed  to  be 
infectious.  Some  of  the  wickedness  in  it  certainly  was.  With 
varying  fortunes  and  changing  incidents  he  traveled  on  until 
he  came  to  the  most  dangerous  point  in  all  his  pilgrimage,  and 
entered  upon  the  Bad  Lands,  where  for  a  time,  he  lay  in  the 
house  of  one  Conceit,  who  filled  his  mind  with  evil  counsels. 
He  had  been  laughed  at  so  often,  that  he  had  grown  to  think 
whatever  he  said  was  funny,  and  that  all  things  were  food  for 
his  humor  and  sarcasm. 

153 


ROBERT   J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

He  lost  reverence  for  things  that  all  good  men  revere. 
He  went  past  the  house  of  mourning  with  laughter  on  his  lips, 
and  he  jested  while  the  hearse  stood  at  his  neighbor's  door;  he 
laughed  at  sacred  things,  even  while  there  were  tears  in  his 
own  heart,  because  now  he  laughed  and  jested  not  because  his 
heart  was  light  or  because  he  wanted  to  make  the  world  brighter 
and  men  happier,  but  because  he  wanted  men  to  laugh  at  him. 

He  forgot  that  the  mission  of  laughter  is  beyond  himself, 
is  grander  and  better  than  self;  that  the  man  who  cannot 
sway  as  with  the  breath  of  a  god,  the  listening,  still  breathed 
multitudes  by  the  sweeping  whirlwind  of  resistless  eloquence, 
who  cannot,  with  the  brain  of  genius  and  an  arm  of  iron,  save 
a  sinking  state;  who  cannot  thrill  the  world  with  the  sublimest 
strains  of  deathless  song;  whose  lips  have  not  been  touched 
with  the  incense  of  poetic  fire,  if  he  can  yet  be  an  humble  priest 
at  the  altars  of  Momus,  and  can  waken  the  chambers  of  the 
heart  with  laughter,  and  wreathe  its  altars  with  smiles,  has 
still  a  work  to  do  that  is  honest  enough  to  demand  that  he  be 
true  to  it,  and  manly  and  Christian  in  it. 

In  these  Bad  Lands,  with  their  poisonous  and  infected 
atmosphere,  the  poor  Funny  Man,  weak  and  flattered,  forgot 
there  are  things  in  this  world  he  must  not  laugh  at;  he  forgot, 
when  the  temptation  came  to  him  to  say  a  mean  thing  instead 
of  a  funny  one,  and  no  one  but  himself  knows  how  often  this 
temptation  comes  to  him,  that  it  is  not  funny  to  stab  one  man 
to  make  a  dozen  others  laugh.  So  often  he  yields  to  this 
temptation,  and  then  at  night,  alone,  in  the  solemn  darkness, 
the  climbing  blushes  mantle  his  cheeks  and  burn  his  forehead, 
when  the  cruel,  mean,  pitiful,  bitter  joke  comes  to  him  like  a 
spectre,  and  he  sees  there  is  a  sneer  on  its  shriveled  lips  instead 
of  a  smile. 

Wandering  to  and  fro  in  these  Bad  Lands,  he  forgot,  poor, 
unhappy,  cynical  pilgrim,  that  we  may  laugh  at  almost  every 
thing  else  if  we  will,  but  sorrow  is  sacred.  We  may  laugh  at 
this  man's  creed  and  that  man's  superstition,  but  there  is  the 
one  grand,  broad  religion  of  humanity  that  uncovers  the  heads 
of  believer  and  scoffer  alike,  and  fills  the  heart  with  holy  rever 
ence.  He  forgot  that  when  dark-robed  Sorrow  lays  her  white 
hand  on  our  brother's  heart,  with  the  same  sacred  touch  it 
hushes  the  thoughtless  laughter  on  our  lips. 

154 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

When  he  laughed  at  death,  he  forgot  that  the  lowliest  grave 
that  was  ever  moulded  over  a  pine  coffin  in  the  Potter's  field, 
shut  in  some  hope,  and  love,  and  clinging  tenderness,  with  its 
rayless  gloom,  and  shut  out  some  tears  to  fall  with  the  chilling 
rain  that  dripped  upon  its  mouldering  clods;  some  sighs  to 
mingle  with  the  wailing  winds  that  crept  with  ghostly  whispers 
through  the  dank  grass  rustling  about  it;  some  loneliness  to 
wander  in  the  great  black  night  that  shut  the  sunlight  from  it. 

One  day  he  stopped  to  rest  and  take  notes  in  a  house  he 
had  often  described  but  never  entered.  The  wretched  cottage 
where  the  gate  drags  out  a  miserable  existence  on  one  leather 
hinge.  Where  the  hat  of  last  summer  does  duty  in  the  window 
of  this  winter.  The  house  where  the  woman  with  the  wart  on 
her  nose  and  the  strockly  red  hair  cooks  liver  and  onions  for 
the  man  with  the  hare-lip  and  a  crooked  eye. 

Now  it  was  so  that  the  Funny  Man  went  in  and  sat  him 
down,  and  waited  for  the  man  to  come  home,  that  he  might 
see  her  smite  him  with  the  rolling  pin  and  comb  his  hair  with 
the  gridiron,  as  he  had  often  told  about  when  he  made  merry 
with  his  friends  by  the  way.  But  when  the  man  came  home 
that  night,  with  more  smut  on  his  face  than  his  wife  had  freckles 
on  her  face,  and  his  legs  so  crooked  you  would  think  he  had  to 
have  his  trousers  cut  by  a  grape  vine  or  a  corkscrew,  there  was 
no  show  for  a  fight,  and  the  Funny  Man  was  a  little  disappointed 
and  very  much  ashamed  of  himself,  when  the  ugly  man  threw 
his  dusty  coat  on  the  dusty  floor,  and  walked  up  to  the  ugly 
woman  and  bent  over  and  looked  down  at  the  baby  in  her  lap. 

The  baby!  Prince  of  the  household !  The  little  wondering 
blue-eyed  baby,  with  the  dainty  little  fingers  reaching  out 
after  everything,  and  the  flossy  white  hair  standing  around  the 
restless  little  head  like  a  halo.  The  baby!  That  makes  more 
laughter  in  the  world,  purer,  sweeter,  better  laughter  than  the 
Funny  Man  can  ever  hope  to  rival.  The  baby,  that  laughs  at 
its  mother  because  she  is  so  beautiful  and  at  its  father  because 
he  is  so  homely,  and  at  its  uncle  because  his  breath  is  so  short, 
and  at  its  aunt  because  her  teeth  won't  stay  in. 

Baby!  Kings  have  bowed  to  it,  and  Postmaster  General 
Key  has  walked  the  floor  with  13  of  them.  Not  all  at  once, 
however.  Baby;  that  laughs  when  the  angel  kisses  it,  and 
smiles  in  its  sleep  when  the  colic  is  coming  on  strong.  Baby; 

155 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

the  little  white-robed  dot  that  wakes  with  crowing  and  laughter 
in  the  morning  and  coos  itself  to  sleep  at  night.  Baby,  that 
makes  your  heart  bigger  and  better  and  purer  for  the  touch  of 
its  warm,  dewy  lips,  and  the  soft  embrace  of  the  dimpled 
clinging  arms.  Baby,  that  makes  you  laugh  every  time  you 
look  at  it,  until  — 

But  that  night  the  Pilgrim  noticed  that  the  wondering 
eyes  had  a  tired  look  in  them  as  they  lay  half  closed.  The 
restless  little  head,  crowned  with  the  silken  meshes  of  the 
flossy  hair,  lay  still,  or  rocked  from  side  to  side  with  plaintive 
moans.  The  wee  white  hands  had  clasped  themselves  around 
the  hard,  rough,  grimy  fingers  of  the  man,  as  though  no  hand 
in  all  the  world  so  soft  as  his.  The  tired  blue  eyes,  looked  up 
for  rest  and  sleep,  into  the  loving  faces  over  it.  The  parted 
lips,  with  quivering  entreaty,  in  tremulous  wails,  that  pierced 
the  heart  with  anguish,  told  in  their  helpless  accents,  what  they 
could  not  speak.  How  long  and  how  silently  they  bent  above  the 
helpless  little  form;  how  every  pleading  look  of  the  blue  eyes 
burnt  into  their  souls.  How  deep  the  quiet  of  the  still  soft 
summer  night  fell  on  the  cottage,  like  a  pall. 

The  heavy  hours  drag  on,  but  the  tired  arms  that  all  day 
long  wrought  at  the  murky  forge,  still  wind  themselves  around 
the  little  white-robed  figure  as  though  their  giant  strength 
could  hold  it  back  from  death.  The  speechless  pain  looks 
out  of  the  baby  eyes.  The  soft  moans  and  the  plaintive  wails 
die  away  in  a  fluttering  sigh.  The  silky  tangled  hair  is  damp, 
a  shadow  deeper  than  the  summer  night  steals  across  the  baby 
face,  the  quivering  lips  wreathe  themselves  in  a  faint  smile  of 
relief,  the  tired  eyes  close,  the  wee,  white  baby  fingers  loose 
their  clinging  hold 

And  the  Funny  Man  learns  there  is  something  in  this  world 
too  deeply  nestled  in  the  human  heart  for  laughter  to  reach. 
And  he  rises  and  turns  to  go  on  in  his  pilgrimage,  and  when 
Sorrow,  she  of  the  melting  heart  and  tender  face,  has  stooped 
and  clasped  his  hand,  like  his  good  Angel,  she  leads  him  away 
from  the  Bad  Lands  forever.  And  he  never  laughs  again  when 
the  hearse  is  standing  at  his  neighbor's  door. 

Into  his  writings  at  this  time  began  to  appear  the 
tenderer  and  deeper  philosophy  of  living,  often  masked 
156 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

slightly  with  humor,  but  always  carrying  a  lesson  of 
wholesomeness  and  sympathy,  and  in  his  letters  and 
newspaper  contributions  we  find  those  paragraphs 
beginning  "My  Son",  each  carrying  its  appeal  to  the 
young.  This  was  indeed  the  beginning  of  his  disposi 
tion  to  "preach",  but  he  was  successful  in  avoiding  the 
appearance  of  dry  moralizing  and  sermonizing. 

In  his  fourth  lecture  on  "Advice  to  a  Young  Man", 
which  he  addressed  to  "My  Son",  speaking  of  the 
power  of  innate  leadership,  he  used  an  illustration 
which  all  old  soldiers  love  to  recall.  Perhaps  this  par 
ticular  one  loses  more  than  any  other  in  presenting 
only  the  wording  of  the  story,  for  into  it  he  always 
threw  his  best  gift  of  oratory,  his  peculiar  inflections 
of  voice  and  the  swinging  movement  of  arms  and  head 
that  some  will  recall  with  a  certain  joy.  But  I  give  it 
here  because  its  very  words  will  bring  back  to  memory 
some  of  those  embellishments  and  recall  the  glory  of 
the  peroration. 

One  day  an  officer  rode  down  the  lines.  He  wore  a  yacht 
ing  shirt,  and  a  jaunty  little  straw  hat  sat  on  the  side  of  his 
head.  He  was  a  general.  The  golden  stars  on  the  broad 
collar  of  the  garment  that  fitted  his  form  so  well  told  his  rank. 
His  hair  hung  in  loose  ringlets  down  his  back.  Today  I  would 
have  called  him  a  dude.  The  word  was  not  used  then.  I  felt 
that  if  that  man  ever  got  mixed  up  in  a  fight  his  conduct  would 
cause  consternation  in  the  ranks. 

By  and  by  a  time  came  when  we  were  to  cross  a  marsh  and 
river.  The  enemy  were  on  the  other  side  and  the  fire  from  their 
guns  drove  us  back  time  and  again  from  the  slender  bridge. 
Then  a  detachment  was  ordered  to  go  further  down  and  cross 
in  the  swamp.  The  cavalry  mounted.  We  rode  through  the 
reeds  and  bog,  across  the  shallow,  though  difficult  stream, 
scrambled  up  the  farther  bank,  and  stopped  in  the  tall  reeds 
waist  high.  There  all  that  long  afternoon  we  waited  and 
waited.  The  winds  moved  the  vegetation  around  us.  Afar 

157 


ROBERT  J.    BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

off  the  random  fire  of  muskets  told  us  as  well  as  if  we  saw  it 
what  was  going  on.  It  became  more  rapid,  then  louder  and 
nearer.  Occasionally  a  cheer  went  up.  We  knew  what  that 
meant — a  sortie  for  a  hedge  or  a  stone  wall  by  some  gallant 
fellows.  And  finally  the  rumble  and  roll  of  a  continued  fire, 
punctuated  by  the  artillery.  We  were  ordered  to  mount  and 
prepare  for  a  charge. 

I  saw  that  long-haired  leader.  I  felt  that  some  one  ought 
to  catch  him  and  be  prepared  to  carry  him  off  the  field  as  soon 
as  we  got  in  the  fight.  I  was  ready  to  do  it  myself.  I  had 
nothing  else  to  do.  Now,  over  us  the  bombs  began  to  burst, 
then  came  the  order  to  ride.  At  the  front  of  the  column,  his 
sword  cutting  bright  flashes  in  the  air  as  it  circled  over  his  head, 
rode  the  leader,  cheering  us  on,  and  not  a  man — were  he  a 
coward  two  minutes  before — that  was  not  wildly  glad  to  ride 
that  day  behind  Custer. 

The  mere  listing  of  some  of  the  titles  of  his  lectures 
will  recall  to  mind  fragments  of  the  sayings  of  this 
"Physician  of  the  Merry  Heart ": 

"The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Mustache/' 

"Home/' 

"Pilgrimage  of  a  Funny  Man/' 

"Wild  Gourds/' 

"Woman  with  the  Broom," 

"Dimity  Government," 

"Sawing  Wood," 

"Twice  Told  Tale," 

"Handles," 

"Rainbow  Chasers." 

Wishing  to  give  one  more  expression  of  his  gospel 
of  the  merry  heart,  where  all  his  other  lectures,  under 
various  titles,  had  preached  the  same  sweet  doctrine 
to  the  human  heart,  he  wrote  and  delivered  in  1912  a 
rather  fragmentary  lecture  on  "  The  Laughing  Animal " : 

Nothing  else  in  the  world  of  animate  and  inanimate  nature 
laughs  save  only  man.  Laughter  is  a  human  monopoly.  The 
158 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

sense  of  humor,  the  faculty  of  laughter  is  man's  exclusive 
possession.  There  is  nothing  laughable  in  nature.  The 
mountain  is  majestic;  the  canon  is  grand;  the  sea  is  impres 
sive;  the  meadov/s  are  beautiful;  the  desert  is  lonely;  the 
lava  beds  are  desolate.  But  nothing  in  nature  is  "funny". 
There  is  no  funny  landscape. 

Because  laughter  is  an  attribute  of  the  noblest  animal  in 
creation,  when  we  desire  to  compliment  nature  in  the  highest 
terms,  we  attribute  to  certain  of  her  moods  this  exclusively 
human  faculty.  We  say  "the  meadow  smiles  in  the  sunshine". 
And  that  is  a  compliment.  Because  a  "smile"  enhances  the 
most  radiant  beauty. 

Every  woman  in  this  house,  no  matter  how  wondrously 
beautiful  she  may  be,  is  just  a  little  bit  prettier  when  she  smiles. 
There,  you  have  just  proved  it!  I  saw  the  charming  transfor 
mation  in  every  one  of  you.  Listen  to  this  description  of  an 
April  day,  and  see  how  all  the  landscape  is  changed  and  beau 
tified  with  a  smile — 

The  children  with  the  streamlets  sing, 

When  April  stops  at  last  her  weeping, 
And  every  happy,  growing  thing, 

Laughs  like  a  babe  just  roused  from  sleeping. 

Isn't  that  delicious — winsome — charming?  It  takes  a  brand 
new  grandfather  to  appreciate  that.  And  all  the  transformation 
is  made  by  the  little  suggestion  of  human  laughter.  .  .  . 

Laughter — the  eyes  are  the  windows  of  the  face  and  the 
heart — "the  oriel  windows  of  the  soul".  But  they  are  dark 
unless  laughter  illuminates  them.  Then  we  look  at  the  sud 
denly  awakened  face  and  say,  "Why,  somebody  lives  in  there!" 
That  is  right.  The  soul  is  at  home  and  has  come  to  the  win 
dow  with  her  candle.  The  whole  countenance  is  changed  like 
the  front  of  the  house.  It  doesn't  light  up  the  house  to  have 
two  or  three  ornamental  cluster  lights  in  front  of  it.  That  is  all 
outside.  That  reflects  back  from  the  windows.  But  the  tiny 
candle  inside — ah,  that  shines  through  them!  That  makes 
the  house  alive.  There  is  joy  and  love  and  hope,  and  maybe 
sorrow  and  pain  in  that  house.  It  is  a  human  habitation. 
Nothing  so  transforms  the  countenance  as  a  smile.  An  animal 
can't  do  that. 

159 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Life  could  be  sustained  on  tasteless  foods  and  it  could  be 
lived  by  the  cold  light  of  reason  alone.  But  God  has  given  us 
perfumes  and  rainbows  and  orchards  sweet  with  apple  blooms 
and  orange  blossoms,  just  as  he  has  given  love  and  joy  and  hope 
and  music  and  laughter,  to  ease  and  steady  our  weary  feet 
across  the  burning  marl  on  the  hard  days  of  the  pilgrimage. 
Let  us  then  every  day  thank  God  for  the  joy  of  living,  and 
laugh  a  happy  little  prayer  to  Him  in  the  morning  and  smile 
our  thanksgiving  up  through  starlight  at  the  evening  time. 
Fill  our  mouths  with  laughter. 

Though  the  popularity  of  the  lecture  platform 
waned,  he  remained  a  "drawing  card"  always,  as  shown 
by  a  letter  to  a  friend,  in  December,  1897: 

The  season  has  been  a  busy  one  with  me.  In  all  my 
twenty-one  years  on  the  platform  I  never  had  such  houses. 
Night  after  night  they  have  seated  the  stage,  packed  the  stand 
ing  room,  and  then  turned  people  away.  It's  great  business. 

And  what  was  true  in  1897  was  equally  true  in  1912, 
and  all  this  in  spite  of  what  one  friend  described  as — 

a  thin  piping  voice — and  when  in  the  midst  of  an  eloquent  or 
humorous  sentence  he  would  swing  his  hands  in  front  of  him 
like  an  athlete  about  to  compete  in  the  high  jump  in  the  Olympic 
games. 

Because  of  his  voice  he  "never  accepted  any  invita 
tion  to  speak  under  the  boundless  canopy  of  heaven". 
His  reply  to  an  invitation  to  speak  at  a  Harvest  Home 
of  a  Baptist  Social  Union  was — 

If  the  exercises  are  held  in  the  church,  I  will  come;  if  they 
are  in  the  open  air,  I  will  send  my  blessing.  If  they  are  sort 
of  mixed,  a  little  one  way  and  some  of  the  other,  well — then  I 
will  fall  into  harmony  with  the  occasion — that  is  to  say,  maybe 
I  will  come,  and  maybe  I  won't.  Yours,  one  way  or  the  other, 
ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

While  it  was  true  that  as  a  lecturer  he  had  many 
idiosyncrasies,  his  voice  and  his  manner  on  the  rostrum 

160 


LECTURE  PLATFORM 

would  attract  attention  anywhere.  It  was  not  only 
what  he  said,  but  his  manner  of  saying  it  that  sum 
moned  smiles  or  tears,  as  he  sought  to  master  his 
audience  and  drive  home  a  bit  of  hidden  philosophy. 
He  was  never  at  a  loss  for  a  word  to  express  himself 
and  "a  golconda  of  language  poured  out  like  a  moun 
tain  torrent".  He  was  not  unconscious  of  his  power, 
but  he  never  abused  it.  However,  he  always  felt  that 
Fate  had  played  a  singular  trick  when  it  decreed  that 
he  should  earn  his  daily  bread — "at  least  the  crust  of 
it" — by  appearing  before  an  audience  for  their  approval 
when  he  was  "short  of  stature"  (being  only  five  feet 
three  inches  in  height),  "a  little  bent-legged  feller" 
(the  army  life  spent  on  a  horse  during  his  formative 
years  having  left  that  mark),  and  "lacking  training  as 
a  speaker".  He  summarized  it:  "No  voice,  no  pres 
ence,  no  gestures  and  little  hair".  But  the  irresistible 
smile,  the  twinkle  in  the  eye,  and  the  quaint  humor 
made  one  forget  the  physical  defects  in  the  expression 
of  the  Merry  Heart. 

The  pathos  of  this  merry  making  was  expressed  in 
a  letter  home  at  the  close  of  one  of  his  lecture  seasons: 

.  .  .  Home  to  Robinsnest;  home  to  you;  home  to  my  own 
work;  to  the  old  den  and  the  long  silent  Remington;  to  pick 
up  the  interrupted  threads  of  life  and  its  welcome  duties,  and 
to  pick  up  the  dropped  stitch,  and  see  how  plain  we  can  weave 
the  fabric  on  thro'  to  the  end  of  the  warp  and  woof.  So  many 
dropped  stitches  I  have  had  to  pick  up  in  this  broken,  faulty, 
knotty  life  of  mine.  So  many  mistakes  I  have  made  in  pattern 
and  color;  so  many  times  I  have  let  my  eyes  wander  from  the 
pattern  and  my  hands  drop  from  the  loom.  That's  the  trouble 
with  this  life  of  ours,  dear;  it  isn't  a  Jacquard  loom — it  doesn't 
work  automatically  from  a  set  pattern.  .  .  . 

"His  boys",  as  he  was  accustomed  to  refer  to  the 

young  people,  to  whom  he  talked  at  every  opportunity 

11  161 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

in  churches  and  in  schools  and  colleges,  were  one  of  his 
chief  sources  of  inspiration  and  delight.  His  addresses 
to  them  were  intimate,  friendly,  full  of  rippling  humor, 
but  always  with  a  basis  of  sound  ethics,  clean  morals 
and  wholesome  philosophy,  all  the  more  effective  for 
the  unique  manner  in  which  they  were  presented. 

The  affection  of  young  people  for  him  was  tender 
and  abiding.  In  a  letter  written  to  invite  him  to  attend 
a  college  class  reunion  some  twenty-five  years  after  he 
had  addressed  them,  there  is  this  paragraph: 

There  will  be  a  hundred  men  at  that  banquet  who  would 
walk  four  miles  with  pebbles  in  their  shoes  to  hear  you  talk. 
My  mind  dwells  particularly  upon  your  kindness  one  time  when 
I  wrote  a  lecture  entitled  "That  Bad  Boy",  and  asked  you  to 
look  it  over,  and,  if  you  could,  say  something  good  about  it. 
You  were  then  famous,  with  a  following  everywhere.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  kind  letter  you  wrote  me  and  the  beautiful 
words  of  praise  you  gave  my  modest  effort.  Perhaps  you  did 
not  know  then  how  much  good  you  were  doing  a  struggling 
boy  just  out  of  college,  but  somewhere  above,  with  a  capital  A, 
I  know  there  was  written  that  day  in  the  great  white  book  the 
credit  that  still  stands.  More  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
has  gone  since  then,  but  the  memory  of  your  kindness  is  sweet 
and  fragrant  and  will  be  with  me  till  we  have  both  passed 
beyond  the  need  of  earthly  love  and  care. 

That  letter  was  written  by  Winthrop  E.  Scarritt, 
an  attorney  of  New  York  City,  and  is  typical  of  thou 
sands  that  Mr.  Burdette  received  in  the  course  of  his 
lifetime,  each  one  breathing  its  message  of  affection 
ate  recollection  and  gratitude. 


162 


CHAPTER  VI 

FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

HIS  closest  literary  friendship  was  that  with 
James  Whitcomb  Riley,  the  Hoosier  poet, 
and  it  endured  during  the  lifetime  of  both  of 
them.    Mr.  Burdette's  appearance  upon  the 
lecture  platform  preceded  that  of  Mr.  Riley  by  a  short 
period,  and  the  older  man  was  quick  to  notice  and  make 
note  of  the  genius  of  the  younger.     Mr.  Burdette  had 
already  "  arrived  ",  so  far  as  recognition  and  popularity 
were  concerned.    Mr.  Riley  was  still  struggling  for  the 
recognition  that  came  to  him  so  abundantly  in  the  after 
years. 

Their  first  personal  meeting,  according  to  Mr.  Bur 
dette's  recollections,  was  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Charles 
Philips,  an  editor  at  Kokomo,  Indiana,  and  immediately 
there  was  established  a  bond  of  friendship  and  sympathy 
between  them.  Hitherto,  they  had  known  each  other 
only  through  their  published  sketches.  An  indication 
of  Mr.  Riley's  earliest  familiarity  with  the  works  of 
Mr.  Burdette  is  found  in  a  letter  written  from  Indian 
apolis,  when  Riley  was  with  the  Journal.  Mr.  Burdette 
had  included  in  a  letter  to  the  Hawk-Eye  an  enthusiastic 
appreciation  of  Riley  and  his  work,  to  which  the  Hoosier 
poet  made  his  acknowledgment: 

INDIANAPOLIS,  Jan.  9,  1880. 

DEAR  MAN:  Don't  want  to  clog  your  time,  but  must  hold 
you  with  my  glittering  pen  long  enough  to  thank  you  for  your 
kindly  mention  of  me  in  your  Spencer  letter.  It  was  a  good 
thing  to  say,  and  a  mighty  good  way  you  said  it.  Years  ago 
I  said  a  good  thing  about  you.  You  never  knew  it,  perhaps, 

163 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

for  it  was  when  the  soul  o'  me  had  been  out  high-lonesomin', 
and  run  up  against  your  own — out  there  in  Peoria,  I  imagine, 
about  the  time  your  good  wife  was  so  wisely  foreshadowing  the 
blessed  future  that  has  collared  you — yea,  even  as  I  write. 
Well,  what  I  said  about  you  started  out  like  this: 

"  'Twas  a  funny  little  fellow 

Of  the  very  purest  type — 
For  he  had  a  heart  as  mellow 

As  an  apple  over-ripe; 
And  the  brightest  little  twinkle 

When  a  funny  thing  occurred, 
And  the  lightest  little  tinkle 

Of  a  laugh  you  ever  heard." 

And  ended  (just  as  it  will  end  in  some  glorious  dawn,  I  pray) 
like  this: 

"And  I  think  the  angels  knew  him, 

And  had  gathered  to  await 
His  coming,  and  run  to  him 

Through  the  widely-opened  gate — 
With  their  faces  gleaming  sunny 

For  his  laughter-loving  sake, 
And  thinking,  '  What  a  funny 
Little  angel  he  will  make! '  " 

You  have  done  me  a  world  of  good,  and  for  you,  in  return, 
I  could  run  my  legs  off  clean  to  the  hilt,  and  holler  God  bless 
you  every  jump.  And  now  with  every  intense  pang  of  grati 
tude,  and  throe  of  incandescent  thankfulness,  believe  me,  I  am, 

Yours  exactly, 

J.  W.  RILEY. 

I  enclose  the  stuff  I  threatened  to  afflict  you  with.     If  you  ever 
worry  through  'em,  tell  me  what  you  think. 

J.  W.  R. 

Mr.  Burdette  never  missed  an  opportunity  both 
by  spoken  or  written  word,  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
public,  and  particularly  of  lecture  bureau  committees, 
to  Mr.  Riley's  evident  quality.  Indeed,  an  old  letter- 
164 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

head  of  Mr.  Riley's,  used  by  him  in  the  early  80's, 
includes  at  the  top  the  text  of  a  flattering  notice  from 
Mr.  Burdette,  and  a  letter  written  by  him  to  a  plat 
form  committee  about  the  same  time  says: 

I  know  Mr.  Riley  as  a  journalist,  poet  and  lecturer,  and 
I  want  you  to  hear  him  so  that  you  may  admire  him  as  much 
as  I  do.  I  endorse  him  as  I  would  a  man  at  the  bank.  He  is 
pure  gold.  I  stand  pledged  to  redeem  my  endorsement,  for 
he  is  undoubtedly  a  grand  fellow. 

Their  correspondence  began  following  the  personal 
meeting  at  Kokomo,  and  continued  until  it  was  closed 
by  the  last  illness  of  Mr.  Burdette  in  1914.  Riley 
realized  and  expressed  always  his  debt  to  the  encourage 
ment  and  support  of  the  older  man,  as  indicated  in  a 
letter  written  from  Indianapolis  in  1881,  in  which  he 
says: 

Your  letter,  brief  as  it  is,  was  a  good  thing  to  get,  and  I 
thank  you  for  it  with  a  full  heart.  In  reply  to  your  query  as 
to  my  success,  and  how  I  like  it,  I  answer,  good.  While  the 
public  is  not  exactly  clamoring  for  me,  it  is  not  ignoring  my  great 
worth  at  least;  and  I  am  being  almost  daily  assured  by  the 
Chicago  Hathaway  that  I'm  to  be  a  'big  card';  and  through 
him,  too,  his  Boston  brother  is  evincing  a  special  interest  just 
now.  But  I  owe  you  everything,  and  when  I  am  indeed  pros 
perous  I  can  prove  me  love. 

Yesterday  I  said  good-bye  to  poor  Charlie  Philips.  He 
died  the  morning  of  the  fifth.  He  always  liked  you,  and  made 
me  like  you,  long  before  I  shook  your  hand.  God  bless  and 
rest  him! 

I  am  to  have  a  few  engagements  East,  the  Boston  branch 
writes,  but  an  audience  at  "The  Hub",  they  intimate,  will 
cost  me  money  probably,  though  I'm  going  to  ask  them  to  get 
it  without  if  possible. 

P.  S.  You  are  to  be  at  Edinburg,  near  here,  in  a  week  or  two, 
and  I'm  going  to  see  you  then  if  there's  a  way.  Twittered 
there  not  long  ago  myself — to  a  good  house  too. 

165 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Wish  you  could  find  time  to  write  me  a  vagrant  line  or 
two,  with  an  occasional  "pointer"  about  things  that  I'm  eter 
nally  groping  after. 

At  the  top  of  this  letter,  in  Riley's  painstaking 
chirography,  was  the  following  limerick,  evidently  not 
included  in  any  of  his  published  works: 

"A  carpenter  up  in  Du  Chien 
Who  had  sliced  off  his  nose  with  a  plien, 
Simply  put  up  his  thumb 
To  the  place  'twas  cut  frum 
And  remarked,  '  You  can't  do  that  agien! '  " 

Riley's  eastern  successes  followed  upon  the  insistent 
demand  of  Burdette  that  he  let  himself  be  known  by 
his  platform  appearances  to  Eastern  audiences,  and 
the  first  appearance  of  the  Hoosier  poet  in  the  Star 
Lecture  Course  at  Philadelphia  was  brought  about  by 
the  Hawk-Eye  man's  insistence  and  assistance.  Com 
paratively  unknown  in  the  East,  it  was  necessary  that 
Riley  be  vouched  for  by  some  one  whose  platform 
experience  made  his  voucher  altogether  reliable.  Mr. 
Burdette  personally  interviewed  Mr.  Pugh,  the  man 
ager  of  the  Philadelphia  Star  Course,  agreeing  that  if 
Mr.  Riley  were  given  a  place,  he  himself  would  take 
the  platform  with  him,  and  would  arrange  with  Josh 
Billings  (Henry  W.  Shaw)  to  be  one  of  a  trio  on  the 
occasion  of  Riley's  appearance.  Shaw  opened  the 
programme  with  an  address,  and  Mr.  Burdette  fol 
lowed  with  an  eloquent  introduction  of  the  Hoosier 
poet.  Mr.  Riley's  success  was  absolute  and  convinc 
ing,  and  there  was  no  greater  joy  in  the  heart  of  any 
one  of  Riley's  admirers  than  in  that  of  Mr.  Burdette. 

Writing  again  from  the  Journal  office  in  1882,  the 
Hoosier  poet  thus  responded  to  an  invitation  to  visit 
with  Burdette  at  his  suburban  home  at  Ardmore: 
166 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

Your  letter  is  the  most  gracious  thing  that  has  come  to 
me  for  an  age.  It  is  ripe  and  mellow  with  all  mirth  and  tender 
ness.  I  laugh  a  world  of  tears  up  in  my  eyes,  and  then  cry  out 
more;  and  if  I  could  write  one-half  as  good  I'd  be  too  selfish 
to  ever  give  it  away,  but  would  keep  it  solely  for  myself,  to 
look  at  and  pet  and  fondle  and  fool  over  when  all  the  world 
was  dark  and  comfortless,  and  even  the  sunshine  couldn't 
touch  a  fellow  up  with  any  pulse  of  warmth.  But  you  have 
been  more  generous,  and  so  I  love  you  better  than  myself. 

Your  farm-talk  tingles  through  the  old  "Benj.  Johnson" 
heart  till  I  envy  you  your  opportunity  of  gathering  such 
material  as  I  could  just  now  revel  in  and  need  so  much.  And 
if  I  only  could  get  to  you  there  I'd  come  on  the  wings  of  the 
cyclone,  but  I  think  the  way  in  which  you  have  sketched  your 
rural  environments  will  serve  as  inspiration  for  one  other  poem 
at  least.  I  could  enjoy  country  life  for  any  length  of  time  with 
you  along;  without  such  companionship,  the  first  few  months, 
I  fear,  would  be  just  a  little  trying. 

Here  all  has  not  been,  nor  is,  to  say  delectable.  The  sun 
scorches  us  today — tomorrow  the  rain  whips  us  into  draggled 
ribbons,  and  the  next  day  the  cyclone  spats  us  clean  over  the 
county-line,  and  we  grab  a  root  and  pray  that  the  next  day 
will  not  find  our  bones  bleaching  on  some  alien  strand.  But 
"the  whirligig  of  time"  giggles  right  along,  and  The  Journal 
seems  to  "stand  in"  with  the  racket  and  whizz  and  whirl  and 
swirl  along  about  level  with  the  general  havoc.  I  have  not 
been  as  busy  as  I  might  have  been,  but  am  getting  in  a  better 
state  of  mind,  and  now  feel  that  more  good,  and  more  of  it, 
is  lurking  near  at  hand  in  wait  for  me  to  catch  up  on. 

The  first  page  of  the  text  of  another  letter  is  illus 
trated  with  pencil  sketches  setting  forth  the  spirit  of 
the  following  verse,  with  which  it  is  adorned: 

LITTLE  JACK  WISEMAN 

"0  kind  friendth  and  neighborth,  come  lithen  unto  me! 
I'm  little  Jacky  Witheman,  ath  you  can  plainly  thee. 
I  knowth  all  my  letterth  un  can  thay  'em  upthide-down, 
Un  I  can  thpell  about  ath  well  ath  any  boy  in  town ; 
Tony  '  ith  a  big  word,  and  tho  ith  '  Lady  ',  too, 
Un  when  I  get  to  '  Balcony  '  I'll  be  ath  high  ath  you!" 

167 


ROBERT   J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Riley  was  rapidly  coming  into  his  own.  His  eastern 
successes  had  brought  him  a  wider  recognition  in  a 
literary  way  and  the  story  of  his  growth  is  set  forth  in 
his  inimitable  fashion  in  the  following  letter: 

INDIANAPOLIS,  Aug.  6,  '82. 
DEAR  BURDETTE: 

I  don't  know  of  anything  better  than  a  letter  from  you; 
and  if  you  could  see  me  run  to  meet  'em  when  they  come,  and 
grab  'em  up,  and  pet,  and  dandle  'em  around,  why  I'm  almost 
sure  you'd  think  the  time  you  spare  to  me  not  wasted  after  all. 

But  I  want  to  be  with  you  there — stirred  up  and  mixed  and 
blended  with  the  coolness  of  the  woods — the  tempered  warmth 
of  the  sunshine,  and  the  happy  combination  of  the  two.  Where 
I  can  chew  "Star"  Navy  all  day  long  and  never  feel  the  bitter 
pangs  of  heartburn  and  where  I  could  wad  wet  natural-leaf 
into  the  bowel-cavity  of  a  clay  pipe  and  smoke  till  black  in 
the  face,  still  smiling  blandly. 

0  my  friend,  Success  is  an  exclusive  kuss,  but  ever  on 
speaking  terms,  he  sorto'  seems  to  like  to  "stand  in"  with  "the 
boys",  after  all.  Le's  forget  him  now,  and  just  look  over  the 
past!  What  do  you  say.  Of  course  he's  not  as  quick  to  see 
things  as  we  are;  but  when  he  comes  forward  as  he  does  and 
frankly  acknowledges  his  error,  why,  of  course,  it's  all  right! 
It's  all  right!  Old  man!  'Sail  right!  By  yourses  by  yours! 
Every  thinggoes ! ! 

Some  time  since  I  saw  a  paragraph  floating  about  to  the 
effect  that  you  had  permanently  retired  from  the  lecture  field, 
but  am  glad  to  see  by  the  Bureau  "prospectus"  that  you  will 
still  "argue".  That's  right — you  mustn't  desert  me.  Fact 
is  I'd  feel  might  lonesome  on  the  road,  knowing  all  season  long 
that  I  had  no  prospect  ahead  of  running  across  you,  or  your 
colliding  with  me  occasionally.  Wish  we  could  strike  some 
more  of  that  joint  business,  as  at  Philadelphia,  or  do  "double- 
business"  altogether.  Why  wouldn't  that  be  a  good  thing. 
'Spose  we  test  it  a  few  places  this  season.  Hathaway  could 
arrange  a  few  choice  points — and  laucks!  W'at  larx!  Seri 
ously,  now,  think  of  it. 

Another  brief  note  from  Greenfield  in  1883  indicates 
the  tenderness  of  the  friendship  between  the  two  men. 
168 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

Mr.  Burdette  and  family  were  then  living  amid  the 
beauty  of  a  suburban  Pennsylvania  town,  and  their 
home  was  designated  by  the  poetic  fancy  of  the  Iowa 
humorist  as  "Robin's  Nest",  the  beauty  of  which  was 
set  forth  in  published  verses,  which  were  acknowledged 
in  the  following  note: 

GREENFIELD,  IND.,  April  24,  '83. 
DEAR  FRIEND: 

Have  I  yet  written  you  to  say  how  your  poem  of  The 
Robin's  Nest  delighted,  and  still  continues  to  delight  me?  It 
is  so  exquisite — so  blossom-like,  and  blessed  with  dews  and 
airs  and  scents  of  happy  summers  and  all  the  twittering  songs 
therein,  that  it  has — 

— Power  to  quiet 
The  restless  pulse  of  care, 
And  falls  like  the  benediction 
That  follows  after  prayer. 

Always  I  think  of  you  with  gratitude,  and  your  memory, 
and  your  Robins',  is  always  as  warm  and  bright  and  clear  and 
pure  as  when — 

The  June  skies  smile 

And  we  wing  our  way  by  "still  waters"  awhile 
Till  the  path  to  "green  pastures"  leads  over  a  stile 
To  a  garden  quiet  and  low.     God  bless  us,  every  one! 

JAMES  W.  RILEY. 

The  publication  of  the  first  volume  of  Riley's  poems 
as  by  "Ben  Johnson  of  Boone"  brought  another 
warm-hearted  and  enthusiastic  commendation  from 
Mr.  Burdette's  pen  in  the  columns  of  the  Hawk-Eye, 
and  Riley  wrote  in  August,  1883: 

ROCKVILLE,  IND.,  Aug.  16,  'S3. 
DEAR  BURDETTE: 

The  notice  in  The  Hawk-Eye  of  the  "Ben  Johnson"  poems 
is — like  all  you  do — supremely  good.  My  gratitude  is  like  a 
prayer— as  earnest  and  as  honest  and  as  pure. 

169 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

How  I  would  like  to  see  you,  my  friend,  and  let  the  world 
go  by!  But  who  can  stop  for  breath,  hungry  as  I  am  for  the 
long  listless  afternoon  of  an  assured  living.  This  yearning 
just  won't  mix  with  poetry,  or  slip  the  ratchet  of  the  reel  of  my 
desires,  but,  as  you  once  remarked  in  other  sense,  "  I  am  getting 
there,"  and  no  one,  I  am  sure,  will  be  gladder  of  it  than  your 
self.  And  it  will  please  you  none  the  less  that  all  the  other 
fixeder  literary  "jours"  are  indirectly  hollering  "Come  on!" 
The  Boston  fellows — and  the  New  York,  with  even  now  the 
editors  of  magazines — and — latest  of  them  to  speak  out,  but 
bravest  in  prophetic  utterances,  Joel  Chandler  Harris.  For 
give  me  even  unto  nine  and  ninety  times  should  I  so  quote  to 
you  his  closing  paragraph:  "I  do  not  know  how  old  you  are, 
but  you  are  the  only  verse-builder  in  my  knowledge  who  has 
caught  the  true  American  spirit  and  flavor.  These  are  dis 
tinctive,  and  will  bring  you  distinction." 

Now,  honestly,  I  falter  as  I  put  it  down — but  he  said  it, 
and  God  knows  how  hard  I  am  trying  to  believe  it!  The  little 
book  will  go  through  one  more  edition  that  we  know  of.  Wish 
we  could  have  published  East — but  couldn't,  "Tomorrow  and 
tomorrow  and  tomorrow"  and  then  we  will — "won't  us,  Pip? 
And  ever  the  best  of  friends."  .  .  . 

Frequently  in  their  platform  work  their  engagements 
brought  them  close  together,  and  whenever  it  was 
possible  they  joined  each  other  for  a  day  or  a  night  for 
an  exchange  of  recollections,  philosophy,  humor,  and 
all  the  joys  of  a  sympathetic  friendship,  and  their 
correspondence  continued  in  many  scribbled  notes 
written  in  the  intervals  of  lecturing,  and  conveying  the 
impressions  of  travel.  For  instance,  a  letter  from  Riley 
in  December,  1883: 

Tonight  I  was  to  hear  a  religious  lecture  that  impressed  me, 
and  am  inclined  to  send  you,  my  good  friend,  these  lines  born 
of  it: 

Out  of  the  hitherwhere  into  the  Yon — 
The  land  that  the  Lord's  love  lies  upon: 
Where  one  may  rely  on  the  friends  he  meets, 

170 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH   RILEY 

And  the  smiles  that  greet  him  along  the  streets. 
Where  the  mother  that  left  you  years  ago 
Will  lift  the  hands  that  were  folded  so, 
And  put  them  about  you,  with  all  the  love 
And  tenderness  you  are  dreaming  of. 

Out  of  the  hitherwhere  into  the  Yon — 
Where  all  of  the  friends  of  your  youth  have  gone: 
Where  the  old  schoolmate  that  laughed  with  you, 
Will  laugh  again  as  he  used  to  do, 
Coming  to  meet  you,  with  such  a  face 
As  lights  like  a  moon  the  wondrous  place 
Where  God  is  living — and  glad  to  live, 
Since  he  is  the  Master,  and  may  forgive. 

Out  of  the  hitherwhere  into  the  Yon — 
Stay  the  hopes  we  are  leaning  on! 
You,  Divine,  with  your  merciful  eyes 
Looking  down  through  the  far-away  skies, 
Smile  upon  us,  and  reach  and  take 
Our  worn  souls  home,  for  the  Savior's  sake. 
And,  so,  Amen — for  our  all  has  gone 
Out  of  the  hitherwhere  into  the  Yon. 

Truly  your  friend, 

J.  W.  RILEY. 

On  his  thirty-eighth  birthday  Mr.  Burdette  wrote 
to  Mr.  Riley  the  sum  of  his  faith  and  philosophy,  in  a 
letter  altogether  characteristic  of  the  writer: 

RILEY  AVICK:  We've  read  yer  letther  an'  the  pekthur  on 
the  forud  end  ov  it,  an'  the  papers  ye  sint  and  the  pothry.  It 
wuz  all  good  enough  to  ate,  mon,  but  the  sonnet  to  "The 
Edithor"  wuz  the  sandy  pig  av  the  litther,  the  pride  av  the  pen. 

My  boy,  tomorrow  I  will  be  38  years  old.  How's  that  for 
new  hair,  a  third  crop  of  teeth  and  a  cord  of  wood  without 
spectacles  every  morning  before  breakfast.  I'm  getting  there 
my  tender  Telemachus.  And  I'm  just  as  happy  as  I  was  when 
I  was  weaned.  Happier,  my  son;  far  happier. 

171 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

I  think  Jacob  sized  it  up  when  he  told  Pharaoh,  "Few  and 
evil  have  the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life  been,  and  have  not 
attained  unto  the  days  of  the  years  of  the  life  of  my  fathers  in 
the  days  of  their  pilgrimage."  No  man  could  work  more 
days  into  one  sentence  than  Jacob,  when  he  had  lots  of  time. 
"  But,  as  I  was  a  savin',"  he  meted  it  out  with  the  right  measure. 
He  said  his  days  had  been  "few",  when  "the  days  of  the  years 
of  his  pilgrimage"  had  been  130  years,  and  he  said  they  had 
been  "evil",  when  all  the  evil  there  was  in  them  he  had  brought 
upon  himself. 

God  blesses  us  without  our  asking,  and  we  bring  the  curses 
upon  ourselves.  Why,  I  look  back  myself,  and  just  see  how 
fair  and  bright  are  all  the  days  of  the  years  of  all  my  pilgrimage, 
save  where  my  own  faults,  my  own  follies,  my  own  wickedness, 
have  clouded  the  vistas.  Take  out  the  first  15  years,  and  I 
wouldn't  live  one  twelve-month  over  again.  I  wouldn't  go 
back  and  start  again  if  I  could.  Every  year  is  radiant  with 
blessings,  every  mile  is  bright  with  God's  goodness,  but  my  own 
faults  bristle  among  the  flowers,  and  my  own  wretched  handi 
work  mars  and  stains  the  fair  plan  of  every  day.  And  I 
wouldn't  trust  myself  to  go  through  it  all  again.  I'm  glad, 
glad,  glad  that  I'm  38,  with  a  chance  to  do  better  still  before  me. 

I  want  to  live  to  be  70,  because  I  think  I  have  a  right  to 
my  "three  score  years  and  ten".  I  want  my  whole  ration, 
but  I  don't  care  for  any  more.  I  have  about  as  long  to  live 
now,  as  I  have  already  lived,  and  I  want  every  day  of  it.  But 
when  our  good  friend  Death  knocks  at  my  door  and  says, 
"Robert,  it  has  just  struck  70  by  your  hour  glass,"  I  will  go 
with  him  just  as  willingly  as  I  ever  followed  the  chairman  of  a 
committee. 

Seventy  years  is  enough  of  it.  By  the  time  we  reach  the 
half-way  mile  post,  my  boy,  the  songs  the  siren  sang  when  we 
were  boys  sound  just  as  sweetly  to  us,  but  we  are  content  to 
lean  (picture  of  siren)  back  in  our  comfortable  arm-chairs  and 
listen  to  them. 

We  don't  go  banging  our  tender  bones  among  the  rocks  to 
learn  the  words;  we  are  content  to  know  the  tune.  The  world 
is  fairer  at  40  than  it  is  at  20,  because  its  vistas  are  longer,  its 
distances  are  greater,  its  horizon  has  a  broader  sweep.  At 
twenty  there  is  a  short  life  and  little  experience  behind  us,  and 
172 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

only  the  blank  unlifted  curtain  of  the  future  before  us.  We 
only  see  the  world  in  retrospect,  and  of  this  blessing,  the  older 
man  has  the  greater  share. 

It  is  a  good  old  world,  Riley;  for  70  years.  But  that's  the 
distance.  It  wouldn't  roll  worth  a  cent  on  a  century  track. 
I  am  going  to  take  it  for  granted  that  I'll  live  to  be  70.  And 
I  won't  ask  for  another  day.  What  is  sent  over  that  is  "com 
plimentary".  Sent  right  along,  you  see,  because  I'm  an  old 
subscriber. 

But  it's  a  good,  beautiful  world,  too;  full  of  good  people 
and  dear  friends.  There  are  flowers  and  ferns  and  oaks  and 
vines  enough  to  charm  the  eye,  and  even  the  weeds  and  bram 
bles  are  pretty,  viewed  at  a  distance.  I  am  satisfied  with  the 
world  and  I  couldn't  make  half  so  good  a  money,  even  if  I  had 
the  capital  and  material. 

July  31. 

And  now,  on  Monday  morning,  comes  a  Journal  with 
your  latest  and  one  of  your  sweetest  songs,  published  last 
Saturday.  Why,  my  boy,  I  believe  I  will  appropriate  that  for 
myself  it  comes  in  so  aptly.  Did  you  know  Sunday  was  my 
birthday?  Did  you  write  that  poem  for  me?  I  will  believe 
you  did,  anyhow.  It  must  be  so. 

Poor  little  Prince!  He  has  been  very  sick.  Got  loose  in 
the  orchard  and  devoured  many  green  apples,  had  a  fever  and 
is  now  convalescing  slowly  with  a  mouth  full  of  cankers  that 
makes  all  hours  a  burden  and  meal  time  an  agony  to  him.  But 
he  feebly  sends  his  love  to  "Mr.  Riley",  and  wife  and  sister 
join  in  kindest  regards  for  the  friend  whose  name  is  often  on 
our  lips,  and  today,  as  I  will  be  when — 

Tide  of  raptures  long  withdrawn 

Flow  back  in  summer  floods,  and  fling 
Here  at  our  feet  our  childhood  sweet 

And  all  the  songs  we  used  to  sing. 
I  am 

Your  friend, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

A  glimpse  of  Riley's  literary  activities  is  obtained 
in  the  following  letter  written  in  October  of  1897: 

173 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Your  delinquent  friend  just  couldn't  write  you  sooner  than 
this  living  minute — and  even  now  is  writing  breathlessly.  For 
some  months  I've  been,  day  and  night,  in  literary  overalls, 
drudging  as  never  before.  Last  I  saw  you  I  think  I  told  you  I 
meant  to  take  a  long  rest  and  also  give  the  public  one.  Well, 
simply,  I  lied— though  with  extenuation.  Out  of  a  clear  sky 
came  up  a  poem  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand,  to  start  with, 
but  it  grew  and  grew  and  likewise  GREW,  until — behold!  I 
am,  just  this  instant  only,  emerging  from  its  awful  shadow. 

Not  this  one  alone,  but  countless  other  lesser  ones — Christ 
mas  poems,  ordered,  as  you  know,  in  this  unhallowed  season — 
six  of  which  I've  actually  built — the  typewriter  now  "grittin"' 
its  teeth  over  the  last  (I  trust) — a  dod-gasted  overbearing  tale 
in  rhyme  that  has  forced  itself  into  nearly  three  hundred  lines. 

And  yet,  despite  all  this,  I've  got  up  in  the  night  to  read 
your  latest — and,  I  think,  your  best — book.  At  home,  too,  the 
folks  have  fought  over  it — loving  every  wholesome  word  of  it 
the  dearer,  since  as  they  all  insist,  it  is  so  exactly  and  delectably 
like  its  author.  So — long  ago  as  I  should  have  told  you — you 
must  now  be  rejoiced  to  know  how  very  happily  and  affection 
ately  your  book  has  been  welcomed — even,  my  dear  friend,  as 
you  would  be  in  your  inspiring  person. 

In  November,  1897,  Mr.  Riley  wrote: 

Your  inspiring  hail  across  the  spaces- 
Fills  me  and  thrills  me  with  life  divine, 

Till  the  purple  flood 

Of  my  bounding  blood 
Breaks  into  riot  of  bloom  and  bud! 

There  now!  See  what  a  rapturous  go-devil  you've  let  off  in 
my  midst!  Tomorrow  I'm  to  miss  divine  service  at  All  Saints 
Church,  and  a  Thanksgiving  dinner  with  the  Rector  thereof — 
but  have  I  not  your  sacred  page  with  its  largess  of  compensation 
for  all  I  am  denied  elsewhere — by  blessed  reason  of  my  not 
having  brought  along  a  frocktail  coat — which  reminds  me  that 
The  Wise  Purveyor,  he  knows.  .  .  . 

And  maybe  while  you're  wundern'  who 
You've  fool-like  lent  your  umbrell  to 
And  want  it — out'll  pop  the  sun 
And  you'll  be  glad  you  hain't  got  none! 
174 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

By  your  list  I  see  you've  been  "ushV"  round  about  old 
Ind-anoplus — so  I'm  most  earnestly  hoping  that  you  had  a 
stop-off  there — long  enough  to  see  the  folks  at  your  Lockerbie 
home — bless  'em  for  lovin'  you  as  they  do!  Fact  is,  old  feller, 
I  believe  I'm  a-lovin'  you  just  a  little  more  and  more,  and  gentler 
and  gentler  all  the  time.  Is  it  "cause  I'm  a-kindo"  clockin' 
along  to'rds  the  dusk  of  things?  No  odds! — it's  very  lovely, 
just  the  same;  and  my  Thanksgiving  impromptu,  all  honestly 
and  fervently  reads: 

"To  all,  each  day — or  blithe  and  gay 
With  summer  sun,  or  drear  and  gray 
With  winter  weather — come  what  may 
It  yet  should  be  Thanksgiving  Day." 

Send  us  along  an  ahoy  every  chance  you  get. 

And  again,  writing  in  1898,  Mr.  Riley  says: 

0  gentlest  of  my  friends! 

How  well  I  know  the  trials  of  protracted  work  like  yours 
now — so  you  must  know  that  with  you  I  am  rejoiced  that  but 
a  week  or  more  of  it  intervenes  between  you  and  your  heroic'ly- 
earned  rest.  So,  God  bless  you,  turn  your  every  thought  to 
that  contemplation  solely!  We'll  all  miss  you  at  Winona,  of 
course;  but  no  man-jack  of  us  but  will  stoutly  forgive  your 
absence,  and  wish  you  all  depths  of  peace  and  solace  in  your 
near  haven  of  repose. 

My  own  zest — and — vigor  is  not  to  say  "Coltish",  as  I 
pause  here  to  furtively  inspect  it;  in  fact,  little  "rising"  of  the 
condition  of  last  year  about  this  date — save  that  now  the 
complications  are  by  no  means  so  variegated  as  to  bedaze  my 
pseudo-mind,  nor  is  my  carelessness  physically  quite  so  unfore- 
castful  (if  I  may  coin  a  term);  so  that  I  am  even  promising 
myself  not  to  eat  every  dainty  of  our  lakeside  hostlery;  and 
especially  do  I  mean  to  tamper  coyly  with  their  shot-tower 
berries  and  catfish-pies.  I  may  put  them  in  a  deftly  concealed 
hand-satchel — the  bulk  of  them — but  not  in  my  stomach, 
though  I  die  of  sheer  starvation  under  the  groaning  board. 
(Ghawd!  we  know  why  that  board  groans — don't  us,  Pip?) 

But — if  you  do  get  a  word  to  us — by  our  ending  spread — 
how  it  would  come  indeed  like  a  blessed  benediction,  when  the 

175 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

little  bench-leg  poet,  say,  got  up  at  just  the  right  place  and 
smote  'em  with  the  unexpected  glory! 

The  best  love  of  the  Lockerbie  home  with  my  own  is  here 
with  blent.  To  be  so  universally  loved  as  you  are  surpasses 
all  other  earthly  treasures — and  will  not  that  be,  likewise, 
Heaven's  best  offering? 

With  all  abiding  faith  and  love, 

JAMESY. 

The  illness  of  the  Hoosier  poet  in  1899  brought  at 
once  a  tender  letter  from  his  friend  of  the  old  days  of 
the  Hawk-Eye  and  Journal,  to  which  there  came  a 
response,  saying: 

It's  very  lovely  and  uplifting— all  you  say  and  do.  Read 
ing  your  written  or  printed  words,  the  yet  wobbly  little  old 
invalid  gets  a  new  hold  on  hope  and  cheer,  and  faith  to  match 
both  this  world  and  the  next.  My  grateful  heart  is  wholly 
yours,  in  consequence. 

Following  Mr.  Burdette's  letter  to  Mr.  Riley  Mr. 
Burdette  himself  went  to  see  and  cheer  his  old  Hoosier 
friend.  The  story  of  the  meeting  of  those  two  loving 
and  lovable  souls  was  told  by  Mr.  Burdette  in  "An 
Autumn  Day  with  Riley",  published  in  December, 
1899,  in  which  Mr.  Burdette  said: 

"LOCKERBIE  STREET 

"Such  a  dear  little  street  it  is,  nestled  away 
From  the  noise  of  the  city  and  heat  of  the  day, 
In  cool,  shady  coverts  of  whispering  trees, 
With  their  leaves  lifted  up  to  shake  hands  with  the  breeze, 
Which  in  all  its  wide  wanderings  never  may  meet 
With  a  resting  place  fairer  than  Lockerbie  Street!" 

Years  ago  I  read  the  poem,  by  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  of 
which  this  is  the  opening  stanza.  It  has  the  natural,  child- 
dancing  step  of  his  heart  poems,  and  the  name  fitted  in  so  well 
with  the  rhythm,  that  I  thought  it  was  merely  one  of  Fancy's 
songs,  with  an  airy  habitation  and  a  dream  name.  Because  in 
those  days  Jamesie  didn't  live  on  Lockerbie  Street,  and  never 
176 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH   RILEY 

expected  to  pitch  his  tent  on  that  pleasant  city  lane,  which 
didn't  belong  in  town  at  all,  but  which  loitered  too  long  at  the 
edge  of  the  meadow,  and  was  overtaken  and  hemmed  in  by 
the  growing  city,  always  hungry  for  the  pastures  and  the  fring 
ing  woods  that  lie  without  the  walls. 

But  in  course  of  time  the  poet  drifted  into  this  bit  of  country 
that  lay  under  the  noisy  pavement-waves  of  the  restless  city, 
like  another  Atlantis,  and  there,  in  the  home  of  Major  and 
Mrs.  Holstein,  found  himself  a  dweller  on  the  Lockerbie  Street 
he  had  sung,  years  agone.  This  is  his  home,  a  handful  of  boys' 
miles  away  from  his  boyhood's  home,  his  birthplace — Green 
field,  the  focus  of  "Poems  There  at  Home";  the  starting  point 
for  "Old  Aunt  Mary's";  the  place  where  the  "Old  Fashioned 
Roses"  still  grow;  a  pleasant  land  of  sunny  memories — Green 
field,  where  "The  Old  Band"  used  to  play— 
"Sich  tunes  as  'John  Brown's  Body'  and  'Sweet  Alice/  don't 
you  know; 

And  "The  Camels  is  A-comin"  and  'John  Anderson,  My  Jo'; 

And  a  dozen  others  of  'em — 'Number  Nine'  and  'Number 
'  Leven ' 

Was  favo-rites  that  fairly  made  a  feller  dream  of  heaven. 

And  when  the  boys  'ud  saranade,  I've  laid  so  still  in  bed, 

I've  even  heard  the  locus'  blossoms  droppin'  on  the  shed, 

When  'Lily  Dale'  er  'Hazel  Dell'  had  sobbed  and  died  away — 

...  I  want  to  hear  the  old  band  play." 

More  than  a  score  of  years  ago  I  spoke  my  piece  one  winter 
night  in  Spencer,  Ind.  While  not  many  miles  away,  Mr.  Riley 
was  charming  an  audience  in  Bloomington,  where  is  the  State 
University  and  a  live  chapter  of  the  Phi  Kappa  Psi  fraternity. 
It  was  a  stormy  night.  A  glare  of  ice  covered  the  ground,  and  on 
this  ice  a  rain  was  falling  to  make  the  slippiness  slicker.  It  was 
all  that  the  attraction  of  gravitation  could  do  to  keep  from  slid 
ing  off  and  joining  the  leonids  and  other  loose  and  wandering 
things. 

1  The  Bloomington  hall  was  an  oddly-constructed  affair.  The 
stairway  opened  right  in  the  middle  of  the  hall,  abruptly  as  a 
trap  door.  So,  if  any  one  came  in  late,  he  loomed  up  before 
the  astonished  lecturer  and  in  the  midst  of  the  audience,  like 
an  apparition  from  the  nether,  world.  The  poet-lecturer  was 
getting  along  splendidly,  and  he  was  in  the  midst  of  some  very 
pathetic  little  sketch  in  rhyme,  about  mid-evening. 

12  177 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Suddenly  the  hasty  steps  of  a  belated  season-ticket  holder 
smote  the  stairway  with  emphatic  impatience,  leaping  up  the 
long  flight  two  steps  at  a  time.  The  patron  shot  up  into  view, 
panting  and  breathless,  his  ticket  held  out  in  his  extended  hand, 
his  eager  eyes  divided  between  the  poet  and  a  rolling  search  for 
the  place  where  his  seat  ought  to  be.  In  his  haste  he  climbed 
the  extra  step — the  one  that  wasn't  there.  It  threw  him  off 
his  balance;  he  tripped,  stumbled,  fell, and  went  rolling,  thump 
ing,  thundering  down  the  long  stairway,  clear  to  the  bottom. 
A  chorus  of  shrieks  arose  from  the  women-folk;  three  or  four 
young  men  sprang  to  their  feet  and  hurried  downstairs  in  strag 
gling  order,  to  help  the  fallen  ticket-holder,  the  poet  paused  in 
his  lecture,  and  the  house  was  silent  as  sepulcher.  Then,  half 
way  down  the  stairs,  a  voice,  tremulous  with  anxious  fear, 
called  out: 

"Is  he  alive?" 

A  second  of  silence,  intense,  full  of  strained  apprehension 
and  fear,  then  the  answering  voice  came  up  like  a  rocket,  thrilled 
with  amazement: 

"By  Georgs  he  isn't  here!" 

Murmurs  of  surprise  floated  up  the  stairway  as  the  rescue 
party  hurried  on  down,  and  there  was  that  agitated,  nervous 
rustle  in  the  hall,  which  is  the  way  a  crowd  speaks  without 
moving  the  lips.  Presently,  from  out  of  doors,  came  again,  in 
emphasized  amazement,  a  voice  from  the  relief  expedition: 

"I  can't  find  him!" 

Then  the  murmurs  ran  farther  away.  By  and  by  a  dis 
tant  shout,  mingled  with  laughter,  came  back  into  the  hall: 
"  Caesar's  ghost !  Here  he  is ! " 

And  there  he  was,  sure  enough.  He  had  rolled  downstairs, 
out  of  the  open  doors;  there  he  struck  the  ice  at  the  foot  of  the 
doorstep,  went  sliding  down  the  long  walk  on  the  water-smooth 
glare  like  a  human  toboggan,  clear  out  to  the  edge  of  the  square, 
"and  if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  court-house  fence,"  said  Riley, 
"he  would  have  slid  clear  out  into  the  street  and  half  way  to 
Spencer!" 

Was  he  hurt?  Nobody  ever  knew.  He  never  would  tell. 
When  the  relief  expedition  found  him,  he  was  floundering  about 
in  a  little  pool  with  an  icy  bottom;  struggling  to  get  on  his 
feet,  falling  down  with  a  sprawling  splash  twice  as  often  as  he 
178 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

got  half-way  up,  the  maddest  man  that  ever  fought  against 
the  icy  ruler  of  the  inverted  year,  while  he  pelted  the  night  with 
language  hot  enough  to  thaw  the  North  Pole,  like  the  man — 

"IN  THE  SMOKER 

"  '  Well/  says  he, 
'Now,  what's  yourn?'  he  says  to  me: 

I  chawed  on — for — quite  a  spell — 
Then  I  speaks  up,  slow  and  dry: 
'Jes'  tobacker!'     I — says — I— 

And  you'd  orto  heerd  'em  yell!" 

That  night  Mr.  Riley  drove  over  to  Spencer  to  catch  a 
train.  I  came  down  from  my  room  about  4  A.  M.,  and  found  him 
at  a  table  drawn  up  before  a  roaring  grate  fire,  writing  poetry, 
drying  and  steaming,  and  solacing  himself  with  a  cigar,  which 
was  evidently  comforting  him  for  all  hardships  past  and  troubles 
to  come.  We  rode  into  Indianapolis  together. 

"What  kind  of  a  time  did  you  have  in  Spencer?"  he  asked. 
I  told  him  that  the  committee  and  the  newspaper  men  kindly 
braved  the  storm  rather  than  have  the  hall  closed  on  me,  and 
queried:  "How  did  you  get  along,  Jamesie?" 

"Oh,"  he  said,  cheerfully,  "I  held  the  janitor  spellbound 
for  an  hour  and  a  half!" 

The  following  narrative  by  Mr.  Burdette  typifies 
his  descriptive  genius: 

A  RILEY  RECEPTION 

The  orchard  lands  of  Long  Ago ! 
0  drowsy  winds,  awake,  and  blow 
The  snowy  blossoms  back  to  me 
And  all  the  buds  that  used  to  be! 

Blow  back  the  melody  that  slips 
In  lazy  laughter  from  the  lips 
That  marvel  much  if  any  kiss 
Is  sweeter  than  the  apple's  is. 
Blow  back  the  twitter  of  the  birds — 
The  lisp,  the  twitter  and  the  words — 

179 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Of  merriment  that  found  the  shine 

Of  summer  time  a  glorious  wine 

That  drenched  the  leaves  that  loved  it  so, 

In  orchard  lands  of  Long  Ago! 

Once  upon  a  time,  a-many  years  ago,  Indianapolis,  which 
worships  Riley  even  as  it  loves  him,  was  bent  upon  giving  him 
a  reception.  They  sent  for  Eugene  Field  and  Edgar  Wilson  Nye 
to  come  and  assist.  The  Grand  Opera  House  was  packed  until 
people  began  to  fall  out  of  the  windows.  Purt'  nigh.  The 
programme  arrangement  was  Nye,  Field,  Riley.  But  when 
the  curtain  rang  up,  Mr.  Riley  appeared. 

He  explained  that  he  was  out  of  his  place  on  the  programme 
merely  to  make  a  little  announcement  concerning  Mr.  Nye. 
The  humorist  was  a  victim  to  a  hereditary  affliction  in  regard  to 
which  he  was  morbidly  sensitive.  It  was  quite  noticeable,  and 
sometimes,  when  people  laughed  at  the  bright  humor  of  the 
lecture,  Mr.  Nye,  with  his  peculiar  sensitiveness,  thought  they 
were  laughing  at  this  physical  defect,  and  it  humiliated  and 
embarrassed  him,  even  to  the  extent,  at  times,  of  making  him 
forget  his  lines. 

Mr.  Riley  asked  the  audience,  therefore,  out  of  considera 
tion  for  Mr.  Nye's  feelings,  to  remain  perfectly  quiet  during 
his  reading,  and  especially  to  refrain  from  any  laughter.  He 
would  add,  that  the  affliction  was  merely  a  slight  tendency  to 
premature  baldness. 

Well,  the  audience  put  on  a  decorous,  sympathetic  look, 
when  Nye  came  on,  making  his  first  bow  to  an  Indianapolis 
congregation,  bending  that  hairless,  glistening  billiard  ball  of  a 
head  before  them.  The  house  gasped  and  then  most  incon 
tinently  roared.  When  he  could  command  silence,  Nye  said 
that  he  had  been  summoned  there  by  telegraph — a  compli 
ment  indeed,  which  he  highly  appreciated.  He  was  glad  to 
come.  But  the  audience  would  observe  as  the  entertainment 
proceeded,  that  while  he  and  Mr.  Field  would  appear  together, 
and  Mr.  Riley  and  Mr.  Field  would  be  on  the  platform  at  the 
same  time,  he  and  Mr.  Riley  would  not  come  on  together. 
To  explain  these  separate  appearances  of  himself  and  "the 
star",  he  would  read  Mr.  Riley 's  telegram  of  invitation: 

"  Edgar  Wilson  Nye — Come  to  Indianapolis  and  appear  at 
my  reception.     Be  sure  to  bring  a  dress  suit. 
180 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

"P.S. — Don't  forget  the  trousers.  I  have  a  pair  of 
suspenders." 

For  a  moment  the  jest  hung  fire.  Then  somebody  tittered, 
the  fuse  sizzled  down  to  the  boxes,  and  then  the  gallery  fell. 

Riley  and  Nye  and  Field.  What  a  trio.  And  today  Riley 
stands  alone,  recalling  in  his  memories  of  yesterday,  the  friends 
who  laughed  and  sang  with  him  that  night. 

"0,  the  days  gone  by!    0,  the  days  gone  by! 
The  music  of  the  laughing  lip,  the  luster  of  the  eye; 
The  childish  faith  in  fairies,  and  Aladdin's  magic  ring — 
The  simple,  soul-reposing,  glad  belief  in  everything; 
When  life  was  like  a  story,  holding  neither  sob  nor  sigh, 
In  the  golden,  olden  glory  of  the  days  gone  by. 

Happy  days  they  were.  How  they  bubbled  over  with 
laughter.  How  many  times  I  have  turned  one  or  two  hundred 
miles  out  of  my  way,  just  to  get  to  Indianapolis  for  a  day  and 
a  night  with  Riley.  I  met  him  at  the  door  of  the  Journal  office 
one  night.  "Where  are  you  going?"  he  demanded.  "No 
where,"  I  said.  "Anywhere.  I've  just  come  down  from  La 
Porte  to  put  in  one  campfire  with  you."  He  said  he  had  an 
assignment  to  report  a  "wind  fight",  but  he  would  sub-let  it, 
which  he  did.  The  "wind  fight"  was  an  oratorical  contest. 

And  we  prowled  about  Indianapolis,  and  climbed  up  into 
newspaper  offices,  and  invaded  the  rooms  of  fellows  whom  we 
knew,  or  loitered  here  and  there  by  ourselves,  under  no  pretext 
of  hunting  material,  or  making  "character  studies",  or  of 
doing  anything  else  useful — merely  filling  the  night  with  our 
talk,  and  the  delight  of  being  with  each  other. 

"OUR  KIND  OF  A  MAN. 
"The  kind  of  a  man  for  you  and  me! 
He  faces  the  world  unflinchingly, 
And  smites,  as  long  as  the  wrong  resists, 
With  a  knuckled  faith  and  force  like  fists. 
He  lives  the  life  he  is  preaching  of, 
And  loves  where  most  is  the  need  of  love; 
His  voice  is  clear  to  the  deaf  man's  ears, 
And  his  face  sublime  through  the  blind  man's  fears; 

181 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

He  strikes  straight  out  for  the  Right — and  he 
Is  the  kind  of  a  man  for  you  and  me!" 

And  James  Whitcomb  Riley  unconsciously  describes  him 
self.  A  brave,  strong,  patient  life  has  been  his,  the  inner 
sanctuaries  of  it  known  only  to  his  most  intimate  friends.  A 
year  or  two  ago  I  read  through  a  packet  of  letters  written  by 
him  when  he  was  a  care-free  youth  of  19  or  20,  maybe.  They 
were  written  in  his  wandering  days,  penciled  on  soft  tablet 
paper;  written  here  and  there  in  the  resting  times  at  this  town 
or  that,  and  sometimes  by  the  roadside.  They  were  written 
to  a  comrade  of  his  own  age. 

There  was  no  reason  why  the  writer  should  not  have 
dropped  into  the  easy,  slip-shod — sometimes  slovenly  manner 
into  which  so  many  men — about  everybody  except  you  and 
me — are  so  apt  to  slide  when  they  write  to  each  other.  The 
English  of  those  letters  is  correct,  the  phraseology  is  refined; 
only  once  or  twice  in  the  dozen  letters  does  he  use  any  dialect, 
and  then  it  is  "quoted".  And  for  the  tone  and  matter  of  the 
letters,  they  are  clean  and  pure  as  a  girl's.  Any  one  of  them 
might  have  been  written  to  his  mother  or  his  sisters.  That 
was  the  boy  Riley,  and  that  has  been  the  life  of  the  man.  How 
gentle  he  is,  all  the  world  of  his  readers  knows.  How  loving 
and  loyal-hearted  he  is,  his  friends  of  the  inner  circle  know. 
And  if  you  want  to  know  how  a  singer  can  be  loved  and  honored 
in  his  own  city  and  country,  go  to  Indianapolis  and  hear  them 
talk  about  Jamesie. 

"Peared-like,  he  was  more  satisfied 

Jes'  lookin'  at  Jim, 
And  likin'  him  all  to  hisself-like,  see? — 

'Cause  he  was  jes'  wrapped  up  in  him! 
And  over  and  over  I  mind  the  day 
The  old  man  came  and  stood  round  in  the  way 
While  we  was  drillin',  a-watchin'  Jim — 
And  down  at  the  deepot  a-hearin'  him  say, 

'  Well,  good-by,  Jim; 

Take  keer  of  yourse'f ! '  " 

There  are  abundant  humorous  and  tender  passages 
in  the  many  letters  that  passed  between  Burdette  and 
182 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH  RILEY 

Riley.       In  a  fragment  of  a  letter  from  Riley,  for 
instance,  is  this: 

You  don't  know  the  thousand  friends  you  have  here,  and 
everywhere.  Everybody  loves  you,  and  so  you  have  full 
reason  to  be  the  happy  man  you  are.  God  bless  you  always — 
and  the  gudewife  and  the  bairn!  Tell  all  my  friends  I  love 
them  and  want  to  play  side-show  with  'em  every  day.  Reed, 
Hilt,  and  all  the  Journal  people  send  regards. 

And  this  recollection  from  Burdette  to  Riley: 

The  first  time  I  ever  "met  up"  with  Robert  Mclntyre  I 
heard  him  preach  down  in  Charleston,  Illinois.  And  he  quoted 
a  stanza  or  two  from  "Out  to  Old  Aunt  Mary's".  So  the  two 
of  you — for  you  know  how  Mclntyre  can  quote  anything  he 
loves — have  been  coupled  in  my  thought  ever  since.  And  this 
Christmas  brought  me  that  beautiful  holiday  edition  of  the 
poem  with  my  name  on  the  dedication  page.  Proud?  Prouder 
than  if  I'd  written  the  poem.  Sent  a  copy  straight  away  to 
Mclntyre,  who  is  my  neighbor  in  Los  Angeles.  He  was  born 
ripe,  and  he  gets  sweeter  and  mellower  as  he  grows  nearer  to 
the  youth  of  immortality. 

I'm  not  going  to  try  to  thank  you  for  your  thought  of  me 
in  such  well-beloved  company.  I  think  maybe  I  could  thank 
any  one  else  for  any  other  thing,  but  this,  from  you,  spells  the 
years  backward  for  me  in  a  charm  that  transforms  all  phrase  of 
speech  into  loving  silence.  If  I  could  stand  face  to  face  with 
you  now,  I'd  only  hold  your  hand  and  laugh.  For  if  I  didn't 
laugh  I'd  have  to  cry.  And  I  don't  look  pretty  when  I  cry. 

What  ambrosial  nights  there  were  on  the  calendar  when 
"  Ben  Johnson  "  was  alive !  And  there  was  an  iron  fence  around 
the  Circle,  and  the  Undertaker's  shop  hard  by,  which  was  a 
sobering  place  to  look  into  as  we  hied  for  our  beds!  When  the 
day  was  made  for  pleasure  and  the  night  for  fun,  and  we  worked 
— Jim,  when  did  we  do  our  work  in  those  days?  But  we  did  it — 
and  lots  of  it — and  people  read  it — and  cried  for  more. 

Come  out  to  Sunnycrest,  Comrade  of  Yesterday.  Your 
room  looks  out  over  the  town  and  up  to  the  Sierras.  And  it  is 
pleasant  out  here  all  the  year  round,  and  we'll  be  glad  as  glad 

183 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

if  only  you'll  come!     Madame  sends  affectionate  invitations 
and  welcomes,  and  I  am  as  ever, 

Affectionately  and  faithfully  yours, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

Closing  a  note  to  Mr.  Riley  in  1899: 

I  am,  as  I  always  have  been,  and  down  to  the  sunset  rim 
of  eternity  I  will  be,  your  friend. 

And  again,  ten  years  later,  Mr.  Burdette  writes 
him: 

God  bless  every  bone  in  your  body.  Two  hundred  and 
forty-eight  of  them,  ain't  there?  Every  time  you  break  one 
that  makes  another  blessing  for  the  extra  piece.  Whole 
blessing  too. 

Jamesy,  if  you  don't  come  out  here  some  time,  we  are 
coming  to  Indianapolis  again.  Every  now  and  then  we  get 
hungry  just  for  a  look  at  you.  Come  out  and  make  us  a  Mexi 
can  visit — that  lasts  till  the  kitchen  larder  and  cellar  are  scraped 
to  the  bottom  of  the  barrel.  And  if  you  don't  like  your  room, 
we  will  tear  that  whole  end  of  the  house  down  and  build  it  over 
on  your  designs. 

And  at  the  request  of  a  boy  friend  of  Burdette  for 
an  autograph  of  Riley,  he  sent  this  letter: 

Here  is  a  boy  of  fifteen,  who  says  his  prayers  to  you, 
"speaks"  your  pieces  in  assemblies  of  my  church  and  frankly 
admitted  that  he  had  never  read  anything  of  mine  and  didn't 
know  that  I  wrote  anything,  and  your  autograph  would  be  a 
living  blessing  to  him.  Sit  down  while  you  think  of  it,  and 
send  him  his  halo. 

Yours  with  the  love  of  all  the  yesterdays. 

From  Athens,  Greece,  in  1901,  Mr.  Burdette  wrote 
him: 

Sometimes  I  just  get  plum  homesick  to  see  a  line  of  your 
hand-write! 
184 


FRIENDSHIP   WITH  RILEY 

We  are  enjoying  this  land  of  fact  and  myth,  fancy  and 
reality,  history  and  romance,  truth  and  fiction,  song,  story  and 
deed — and  I've  wished  a  dozen  times  that  you  were  here  to 
help  me  see  it.  I've  seen  so  many  things  thro'  your  eyes,  that 
I've  sorto  got  into  a  way  of  dependin'  on  'em,  like  an  old  man 
with  his  specs,  and  find  myse'f  lookin'  around  an'  sayin', 
"Where's  them  eyes  o'  Jim's?" 

Well,  where  AIR  they?     Lookin'  to'rds  me,  I  hope. 

And  in  the  mellow  light  of  the  sunset  years  Mr. 
Burdette  wrote: 

Remember  every  day,  if  the  hours  grow  long  and  the  inac 
tion  tiresome,  there  are  people  in  this  home  who  think  of  you 
every  day,  and  who  add  the  "Amen"  of  "  God  bless  him  always" 
to  every  thought  of  you.  It  is  a  daily  joy  to  me  to  think  how 
our  lives  came  together,  to  read  between  the  lines  often  as  I 
read  your  songs  of  friendship  and  hope,  of  love  and  good  cheer, 
to  recall  the  old  days  when  the  world  was  new  and  young,  and 
made  for  us  to  play  with.  God  bless  and  keep  you  always, 
dear  friend  of  my  yesterdays  and  the  dearer  friend  of  today. 

Writing  from  Florida,  after  his  serious  illness,  and 
after  Mr.  Burdette's  health  had  broken,  Mr.  Riley  said: 

I  still  progress  toward  my  usual  health,  but  the  recovery 
is  necessarily  very,  very  slow.  Surely,  therefore,  I  am  in  sym 
pathy  with  your  state  of  health,  though  in  no  wise  am  I  per 
suaded  of  its  seriousness.  In  some  good  way — strange  though 
it  may  seem  to  us — I  am  assured  of  your  happy  recovery.  If 
you  could  know  one  tithe  of  the  universal  sympathy  that  is 
yours  you  would  be  cheered  and  heartened  as  a  happy  boy. 

When  I  read  and  read  again  your  letter  it  is  with  smiles 
and  tears,  yet  more  of  the  smiles,  thank  God,  than  the  troublous 
mists.  That  is  right  and  true  and  brave,  as  you  ever  were — 
hale,  wholesome  and  sound  and  sweet  with  the  old  faith. 

And  the  last  letter  of  the  Hoosier  poet  to  his  friend 
was  written  less  than  a  month  before  Mr.  Bur- 
dette's  death,  and  was  in  acknowledgment  of  the 
printed  volume  of  the  latter's  last  literary  work: 

185 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

If  you  could  know  with  what  joy  your  new  book  has  been 
read  by  our  household,  and  with  what  degree  of  pathos  we  have 
been  touched  as  well,  I  feel  assured  of  your  like  delight  and 
fervor  mingling  with  our  own.  For,  truly,  the  chronicle's  per 
formance  is  most  satisfying.  I  give  you,  therefore,  great  honor 
and  renown.  The  publishers  here  are  equally  enthusiastic 
over  the  work — Mrs.  Burdette's  part  as  well  as  your  own.  My 
fervid  affection  is  yours  and  hers,  together  with  Mrs.  Holstein's 
greetings,  and  a  good  all-hail  from  you  will  complete  my  great 
happiness. 


186 


CHAPTER  VII 

BREAKING  TIES 

WITH  the  continued  illness  of  his  wife  and  the 
gradual  growth  of  his  platform  and  literary 
work,  came  the  regretful  decision  that  he 
must  leave  Burlington.      The  summer  of 
1879  he  spent  at  St.  John,  New  Brunswick,  in  the  hope 
that  the  change  of  climate  might  be  beneficial  to  the 
patient  little  woman  who  had  suffered  so  long  and  so 
intensely,  and  whose  health  was  always  his  first  con 
sideration. 

On  his  return  from  Canada  there  is  a  paragraph  in 
one  of  his  letters  that  gives  a  subtle  reflection  of  their 
sympathy  and  understanding: 

Here,  too,  we  can  look  across  the  river  and  see  Ogdensburg, 
N.  Y.  It  is  the  land  of  the  free. 

"It  is  home,"  says  Her  Little  Serene  Highness,  softly,  as 
we  gazed  from  the  car  windows. 

"It  is  where  I  pay  taxes,"  I  replied  harshly. 

"  It  is  where  you  draw  your  salary,"  she  says  reproachfully, 
and  I  am  rebuked  to  silence  and  try  to  think  of  something 
patriotic  to  say.  Presently  she  says,  with  a  wave  of  her  brown 
eyes  over  the  land  we  love: 

"It  is  a  beautiful  land,  is  it  not?" 

"Yes,"  I  whisper  softly,  "yes,  it  is  a  beautiful  land." 

"Well,"  she  said  cheerfully,  "I  have  a  blue-eyed  baby  at 
home  who  is  going  to  be  President  of  all  that  land  some  of  these 
days,  maybe." 

I  never  thought  of  it  that  way  before.  It  threw  me  into  a 
brown  study  and  for  two  hours  I  sat  in  silence  wondering  if  the 
boy  would  not  do  something  handsome  for  the  old  man  when 
he  got  in. 

187 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

That  her  condition  showed  some  improvement  from 
the  change  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  upon  his  return 
from  the  sea  coast  of  Canada  he  was  fixed  in  his  resolu 
tion  to  remove  permanently  to  the  sea  coast,  and  in  the 
following  spring  we  find  this  paragraph  in  the  Hawk-Eye 
of  May  27,  1880: 

Mr.  Robert  J.  Burdette,  who  has  broken  up  house-keeping 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  his  wife  to  the  seashore  for  the  benefit 
of  her  health,  started  East  with  his  family  yesterday.  They  go 
to  Peoria  to  spend  the  Sabbath,  and  thence  to  some  point  on  the 
sea  coast.  Mrs.  Burdette's  health  was  greatly  benefited  by 
her  sojourn  at  New  Brunswick  last  summer,  and  her  physicians 
advise  her  to  remain  near  the  sea  for  some  time  to  come.  Her 
health  during  the  past  winter,  we  regret  to  say,  has  been  poor, 
and  while  hosts  of  warm  friends  will  sadly  miss  her  and  her 
household,  they  will  rejoice  in  the  prospect  of  her  restoration 
to  health. 

And  the  Burlington  Gazette  of  May  25,  1880,  in 
noting  their  departure,  said: 

They  will  be  missed  in  the  church  in  which  Mrs.  Burdette 
was  a  very  active  member,  and  in  the  social  circle,  where  "  Bob  ", 
with  his  brilliant  and  witty  conversation  was  always  a  welcome 
member,  but  "Bob"  will  not  be  lost  entirely,  for  his  connection 
with  the  Hawk-Eye  remains  unchanged,  and  his  sparkling  letters 
and  pungent  paragraphs  will  continue  to  enliven  the  columns 
of  that  sheet  as  heretofore. 

That  summer  they  spent  at  Nantucket,  Mass.,  and 
a  characteristic  letter  was  that  written  by  him  on 
August  3,[to  Doctor  J.  H.  Vincent,  founder  of  Chau- 
tauqua,  expressing  his  sorrow  at  his  inability  to  appear 
before  Chautauqua.  It  tells  the  story  of  the  disappoint 
ing  search  for  health: 

You  will  be  pleased  to  learn,  and  it  will  gratify  the  intelli 
gent  thousands  at  the  lake  when  you  inform  them  that  I  will 
not  be  there  on  the  9th.  I  can't  do  very  much  good  in  this 

188 


BREAKING   TIES 

world,  and  it  occurs  to  me  sometimes  that  I  could  do  as  much 
by  keeping  my  mouth  shut  as  by  following  my  tongue's  free 
course.  I  wish  I  had  the  inspiration  oftener.  I  think  if  it 
came  to  me  fifty  times  a  day  I  would  be  wiser  and  happier. 
At  any  rate  I  would  have  fewer  foolish  remarks  to  repent  of 
when  night  and  penitence  came  on  together. 

If  it  should  happen  that  any  one  might  feel  disappointed 
by  my  failing  to  talk  on  the  9th,  I  am  profoundly  sorry  for 
that  person's  mistaken  sense  of  disappointment;  assure  him 
that  it  is  no  novelty  to  hear  me  chatter.  My  flashes  of  silence 
are  the  brightest  and  rarest  charms  I  possess.  And  I  am  not 
rich  in  them.  Ah,  no!  I  am  woefully  poverty-stricken.  Some 
times  I  haven't  enough  to  go  around.  Let  them  be  thankful  that 
they  will  have  an  opportunity  of  hearing  me  when  I  am  quiet. 

Seriously,  and  in  all  "truth  and  soberness",  I  cannot  come. 
Mrs.  Burdette's  health — if  the  poor  little  sufferer's  combina 
tion  of  aches  and  pains  and  helplessness  may  be  designated  by 
such  a  sarcastic  appellation — has  been  steadily  failing  all 
winter,  and  we  have  come  down  to  this  sea-girt  island  to  see  if 
old  ocean  and  its  breezes  may  do  what  the  doctors  and  moun 
tains  and  prairies  have  failed  to  do.  And  here  we  are  waiting. 
"Her  Little  Serene  Highness"  in  utter  helplessness,  unable  to 
stand  alone  (for  years  she  has  been  unable  to  walk),  her  help 
less  hands  folded  in  her  lap;  she  must  be  dressed,  carried  about, 
cared  for  like  a  baby,  suffering  from  countless  pains  and  aches, 
day  and  night,  and  I  cannot  leave  her  even  for  a  few  days.  No 
one  at  Chautauqua  will  feel  the  disappointment  as  we  do,  for 
we  had  planned  to  go  there  together.  If  she  could  go  with  me, 
I  would  be  glad  enough  to  creep  to  Chautauqua  on  my  knees. 
Her  life  has  been  a  fountain  of  strength  to  me. 

In  her  long  years  I  have  never  seen  the  look  of  pain  out  of 
her  eyes,  and  for  more  than  half  so  long  I  have  seen  her  sitting 
in  patient  helplessness,  and  I  have  never  heard  a  complaining 
murmur  from  her  lips  while  she  has  served  as  those  who  only 
stand  and  wait,  never  questioning  and  never  doubting  the 
wisdom  and  the  goodness  of  the  Father  whose  hand  has  been 
laid  upon  her  so  heavily.  The  beautiful  patience  of  her  life 
has  been  a  constant  rebuke  to  my  own  impatience,  and  in  her 
sufferings  I  have  seen  and  known  and  believed  the  "love  that 
knows  no  fear",  and  the  faith  that  "knows  no  doubt". 

189 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

But  I  am  tiring  the  busiest  man  in  Chautauqua  with  a 
long  letter  when  all  that  he  wishes  to  know  is  that  I  can't 
come  and  lecture  as  I  promised  I  would.  I  would  like  to  do  two 
or  three  things  that  I  can't.  With  a  long  apology  for  taking 
up  so  much  of  your  time,  and  a  thousand  wishes  for  a  happy 
and  successful  summer  at  Chautauqua,  I  am  truly  your  friend, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

In  the  autumn  of  1880  they  returned  from  Nan- 
tucket  to  Philadelphia,  where  the  invalid  wife  was 
placed  in  the  National  Surgical  Institute  in  the  hope 
that  science  and  skilled  care  might  do  what  change  of 
climate  had  failed  to  accomplish.  And  from  that  as  a 
center  he  made  his  lecture  trips,  returning  always  when 
there  was  an  interval  long  enough  between  lectures  to 
permit  a  trip  back  to  Philadelphia. 

The  summer  of  1881  they  spent  at  St.  Andrews, 
New  Brunswick.  It  followed  a  busy  winter  season  for 
him,  for  in  a  letter  written  just  before  his  departure, 
he  notes  that  since  the  9th  day  of  November,  1880,  he 
had  filled  134  lecture  engagements  and  traveled  20,560 
miles.  He  wrote  the  Hawk-Eye  just  before  his  return 
to  the  platform  in  the  fall  of  that  year: 

I  will  admit  right  here,  as  a  sort  of  postscript,  that  I  have 
been  a  very  bad,  lazy  boy  all  this  fall.  I  haven't  written  any 
letters  and  I  haven't  tried  to.  I  will  make  a  free  and  frank 
confession  of  all  my  shortcomings.  Ghostly  Hawk-Eye,  I 
accuse  myself  of  various  and  numerous  faults. 

I  accuse  myself  of  a  love  of  ease. 

I  accuse  myself  of  a  hatred  for  work. 

I  confess  that  I  have  a  good  voice  for  sleep. 

I  accuse  myself  of  throwing  a  quart  of  ink  and  a  box  of 
pens  into  the  Susquehanna  River. 

I  accuse  myself  of  wishing  those  were  all  the  pens  and  that 
was  all  the  ink  in  the  world. 

I  accuse  myself  for  spending  all  my  postage  stamps  for 
cigars. 
190 


BREAKING  TIES 

I  accuse  myself  of  wanting  to  be  cashier  of  a  Newark  Na 
tional  Bank  for  about  fifteen  minutes. 

That  is  the  kind  of  a  duck  I  am,  ghostly  Hawk-Eye,  but 
I  promise  to  do  better. 

I  promise  myself  that  every  day. 

I  make  more  promises  in  half  an  hour  than  I  can  keep  in 
ten  years. 

I  can't  imagine  where  all  my  promises  go.  I  can't  keep 
them;  but  I  am  positive  nobody  else  takes  them. 

A  stranger  may,  sometimes,  but  he  never  does  it  again. 

So  no  more  at  present. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1883  that  he  finally  settled 
upon  Ardmore,  a  suburban  town  not  far  from  Philadel 
phia,  as  the  ideal  spot  for  a  home,  and  to  that  place  he 
removed  his  family.  Of  his  life  there,  possibly  the  best 
picture  is  given  us  in  a  letter  written  by  James  Whit- 
comb  Riley  to  the  Indianapolis  Journal,  following  a 
visit  by  Mr.  Riley  just  after  his  Philadelphia  appear 
ance: 

I  am  just  back  into  the  city  here,  after  a  delightful  day  and 
night  with  Burdette  at  his  home  in  Ardmore — a  quiet,  lulling, 
pastoral  little  town,  out  of  the  clang  and  worry  of  the  city,  but 
still,  as  our  managing  editor  might  remark,  in  his  simple  and 
sententious  way,  in  "close  propinquity"  to  the  metropolis, 
where  every  half  hour  through  the  day  the  trains  go  dancing  in 
with  such  exact  promptness  and  certainty  that  the  Jester  very 
seriously  asserts  that  he  never  winds  his  watch  up  when  at  home. 
And  what  a  very  tranquil,  happy,  perfect  little  picture  of  a 
home  it  is! 

Securely  alienated  from  the  rush  and  wrangle  of  the  cars, 
and  sitting  snug  within  the  center  of  a  smooth  square  lawn,  it 
looks,  in  its  quaint  architecture,  porticos  and  gables,  like  a 
picturesque  design  in  some  bit  of  tinted  worsted  work  that 
women  please  their  cunning  fingers  building;  and  then,  to 
carry  out  the  simile,  the  trim  sward  has  a  lace-like  fence  to 
edge  it,  with  "open-work"  at  either  corner,  where  the  carriage 
of  "Her  Little  Serene  Highness"  flashes  and  semi-circles  in 
and  out  on  every  sunny  day. 

191 


ROBERT   J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

For  in  their  new  home  Mrs.  Burdette  is  more  improved  in 
health,  and  in  contentment,  too,  than  when,  by  travel,  up  to  a 
year  ago,  she  sought  relief  from  her  long  suffering.  "  For  this 
is  home!"  she  said,  glancing  proudly  and  most  fondly  around 
the  twinkling  parlor,  "  and  although  I  can't  skurry  up  and  down 
it  with  a  dustpan  and  a  broom,  I  can  lean  back  here  and  leis 
urely  devise  all  sorts  of  things  to  do,  and  have  them  faithfully 
and  promptly  done — since,"  she  naively  added,  "being  help 
less  myself,  you  know,  the  blessed  household  humors  me,  with 
such  patience  and  good-nature,  that  I  half  believe  sometimes 
I'm  not  exacting  after  all!"  And  then  we  all  laughed,  and  she 
as  heartily  as  any,  which  merriment  in  some  odd  way  reminded 
her  eccentric  husband  of  numerous  examples  of  her  "tyranny", 
"submissively  endured",  he  meekly  said,  "through  an  arid 
waste  of  wedded  bliss  ten  years  in  length — twice  that  in  breadth, 
and  a  century  in  circumference".  But  all  the  time  the  speech 
consumed  the  little  wife  smiled  on  unwaveringly,  appreciating 
fully  the  perfect  beauty  of  the  fabrication,  and,  like  the  doll's 
dressmaker,  with  a  sage  look,  back  of  all,  suggestive  of  that 
oracle's  pet  phrase,  "  Oh,  I  know  your  tricks  and  your  manners, 
my  fine  gentleman!" 

And  the  Burdette  home  is  filled  with  other  music  than  the 
Jester's  laugh.  There  is  the  piano  and  flute  and  violin — the 
latter,  now,  however,  he  seldom  touches  since  his  wife's  afflic 
tion — she  having  always  in  "the  days  lang  syne"  accompanied 
his  violin  with  the  piano,  and  now,  the  once  deft  fingers  shut 
in  the  close  grip  of  her  relentless  malady,  his  own  refuse  to 
caper  up  and  down  the  strings.  But  they  sing  together  still — 
and  her  bright  sister,  Miss  Garrett,  with  them — and  "the 
Prince"  as  well,  who,  by  the  way,  is  so  brimmed  with  melody 
he  even  sings  in  sleep,  and  all  the  silent  beauty  of  his  Kinder 
garten  dreams  is  often  filled  with  vocal  scamperings  of  the 
"Three  Blind  Mice",  or  the  staccattoed  echoes  of  the  tinklings 
of  the  hoof -tips  of  'Old  Kriss  Kringle's'  reindeer  on  thereof. 

And  again,  in  memory,  listening  to  veritable  specimens  of 
all  this  summer  melody  at  Ardmore,  a  voice  of  some  kind  sings 
to  me  like  this: 

Forever  the  birds  are  there, 

And  ever  the  song  of  the  birds, 
And  ever  the  exquisite,  intricate  air 

Of  laughter  and  loving  words; 
192 


BREAKING  TIES 

And  ever  the  robin  trill — 

In  the  winter  as  well  as  the  spring, 
And  even  the  nest  that  the  white  snow  fills 

Holds  ever  the  birds  that  sing. 

0,  ever  the  birds  are  there! 

Singing  so  clear  and  strong, 
That  the  melody  of  the  joy  they  share 

Is  one  with  the  angel's  song; 
And  the  wee  bird  wakes  in  the  nest 

To  twitter  and  pipe  and  call, 
Till  the  world  of  sighs  is  a  world  unguessed, 

And  the  world  of  song  is  all. 

And  the  artistic  talents  of  "the  Prince"  are  wonderful. 
"Keeps  his  thumb  parboiled  turning  the  leaves  of  books  for 
pictures/7  said  the  enthusiastic  father,  whose  early  youth,  as 
well  as  the  son's,  must  have  dogs-eared  many  a  pictured  volume, 
as  one  could  but  surmise,  seeing  him  deftly  "set  a  copy"  for 
the  boy  to  reproduce;  and,  again,  ushered  above  into  the  "lair" 
of  the  versatile  author,  one  could  but  acknowledge  the  conclu 
sive  evidence  of  his  artistic  skill,  in  crayon,  paint  and  pencil, 
as  in  ink. 

"The  lair"  is  a  cozy  corner  room,  a  south  window  looking 
down  upon  "my  neighbor's  truck  patch",  of  which  the  Jester 
went  on  to  say,  that,  as  insignificant  a  libel  on  a  farm  as  it 
appeared  to  be,  a  stranger  glancing  at  it  could  have  no  idea  of 
how  much  produce  the  old  man  pulled  out  of  the  ground  there 
annually.  "And  this  western  window,"  he  continued,  moving 
toward  it,  "gives  out,  you  will  observe,  upon  the  back  lot  of 
the  baronial  demesne,  and — a  goat,  whose  unfortunate  tempera 
ment  you  may  find  suggested  by  his  being  tied  to  the  fence." 

"At  considerable  expense,"  he  went  on,  smiling,  "I  secured 
that  goat,  a  year  ago,  to  amuse  the  Prince;  and  later,  I  secured 
him  to  save  the  boy  from  an  ignominious  end.  But — but,"  he 
continued,  gravely,  "let  me  not  speak  further  in  the  presence 
of  me  childe  of  a  subject  that  can  but  recall  to  him  the  pangs  of 
memories  better  buried  in  the  past  forever ! "  At  the  conclusion 
of  this  speech  the  expression  of  the  Prince's  face  grew  dubious, 
and  he  hinged  out  at  the  door  with  a  rebuking  air  that  brought 

13  193 


ROBERT   J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

a  look  of  genuine  remorse  to  the  father's  eyes,  as  he  hurried  to 
bring  back  the  truant  and  reinstate  himself  in  royal  favor. 

On  either  side  of  the  writer's  desk,  which  occupies  the 
center  of  the  room,  stand  two  home-made  book  cases,  filled 
with  miscellaneous  works,  among  which  the  more  prominent 
are  Hawthorne,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Harte  and  Twain,  Long 
fellow,  Holmes,  Hood,  Keats  and  Tennyson.  And  then  there 
is  a  scattering  number  of  simply  humorous  versifiers,  together 
with  compilations  of  the  odds  and  ends  of  all  the  American  wits, 
from  Darby  down  to  Bill  Nye,  of  the  Boomerang.  On  the  top 
shelves  are  heaps  of  curious  mementoes,  gifts  from  admiring 
friends,  souvenirs  and  trifles  of  every  conceivable  kind  and  from 
all  parts  of  the  world — Indian  relics,  crystals,  corals,  shells, 
mosses,  ores,  stalactites  and  what-not  indescribable. 

And  on  the  walls:  First,  a  legend  in  Hebrew,  Greek  or 
Scandinavian — I  couldn't  tell;  anyway  some  biblical  quota 
tion,  traced  by  the  skillful  hand  of  the  humorist's  missionary 
brother,  now  over  seas  and  ministering  in  some  far  orient  in  his 
chosen  life-work.  And  near  this  is  a  life-sized  portrait  of  Mrs. 
Burdette,  painted  a  short  while  after  her  marriage,  while  directly 
over  it,  and  trailing  its  silken  tassels  against  the  frame  below  is 
the  old  starred  and  scarred  flag  of  Burdette's  regiment,  when 
long  ago  he  stilled  his  boyish  laughter,  and  went  forth,  with 
square  jaws  and  uncurved  lips  and  face  set  straight  against  the 
leaden  sleet  of  battle,  until  the  glad  sunlight  of  victory  broke 
through  the  clouds  and  gave  him  newer  right  to  laugh,  and  lent 
his  country  life  to  join  his  merriment. 

On  the  panels  of  the  doors  are  artistically-arranged  por 
traits  of  notables  in  his  own  line,  fellow-editors,  newspaper 
men,  etc.,  with  the  central  positions  given  to  such  heads  as 
Bryant's,  Greeley's,  Weed's,  Bennett's  and  the  like. 

The  walls,  wherever  one  may  turn,  are  filled  with  pencil 
and  pen  sketches — some  from  applausive  professionals  in  art, 
some  from  bright  amateurs — all  clever,  keen  and  thoroughly 
appreciative  of  the  crisp  and  wholesome  humor  of  the  jolly 
themes  of  their  inspiration — and  many  of  the  very  brightest 
of  the  lot,  I  was  overjoyed  to  learn  were  from  the  pencil  of  a 
"Hoosier"  artist,  Miss  M.  C.  McDonald  of  Camden.  And  so 
it  is,  I  may  parenthetically  add,  that  in  whatever  State  I  find 
myself,  I  find,  as  well,  some  happy  cause  to  "toss  my  ready 
cap  in  air"  and  shout  for  Indiana. 
194 


BREAKING  TIES 

Not  the  last  in  worth  of  all  these  sketches  are  many  from 
the  humorist's  own  conceit  and  skillful  finish.  Around  the 
margin  of  the  ceiling  he  is  now  painting  a  frieze  of  comic  pic 
tures  of  his  own  design,  such  as  a  kennel  scene  of  sleeping  pups, 
a  truant  fisher-boy,  a  howling,  cowering,  chained  Newfoundland 
dog  and  a  goat  rampant  on  a  field  belligerent.  But  for  all  the 
bewildering  fascinations  about  him  everywhere,  the  charm  of 
the  presence  of  the  presiding  genius  of  the  place  is  always  fore 
most  in  the  interest  of  the  visitor. 

Here  it  was,  down  at  "the  pink  edge  of  the  day"  that  I 
gave  a  loathful  farewell  to  the  happy  house — "The  Jester" 
trying  to  be  serious — "The  Prince"  indiscriminately  shaking 
hands  with  everybody,  and  "Her  Little  Serene  Highness"  with 
her  patient  eyes  waiting  upon  the  fuller  glory  of  the  sunset. 

That  winter  was  perhaps  one  of  the  bitterest  and 
saddest  of  his  experience,  and  yet,  notwithstanding  it 
all,  he  did  his  work  for  the  public  courageously  and  with 
apparent  joy.  But  much  of  his  real  heart  is  revealed 
by  a  letter  to  his  father  written  February  8,  1884: 

The  rain  it  raineth  every  day,  and  although  we  have  no 
such  floods  as  the  Ohio  rejoiceth  in,  yet  the  Lancaster  pike  is 
as  a  swamp  and  the  streets  of  Ardmore  are  swamps.  Happy 
is  the  man  whose  boots  reach  to  his  neck  and  thrice  happy  is 
he  who  doesn't  have  to  go  out  doors  at  all. 

We  have  given  Robbie's  goat  to  the  parson's  boys.  The 
result  is  that  the  parson  has  only  one  night-shirt  left,  and  it 
consists  simply  of  a  collar  band  and  one  sleeve.  There  is, 
about  the  appetite  of  a  goat,  a  homely  simplicity  and  an  unos 
tentatious  taste  that  is  charming  to  contemplate  in  this  age  of 
luxury  and  effeminate  delicacy,  and  the  spectacle  of  a  hungry 
and  not  too  fastidious  goat,  making  a  frugal  but  substantial 
meal  off  the  scantily  furnished  clothes  line  of  a  Baptist  parson, 
is  a  picture  of  homely  comfort  and  domestic  enjoyment  upon 
which  the  poets  love  to  dwell  and  which  artists  delight  to  spread 
upon  the  glowing  canvas.  But  I  digress. 

Carrie  is  very  low.  She  is  weaker  and  is  suffering  more, 
than  for  years  past.  Since  the  first  of  December  she  has  only 
been  down  stairs  twice.  Now,  she  lies  in  her  invalid  chair  all 

195 


ROBERT   J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

day  long  in  my  den,  where  I  can  be  near  her  all  the  time, 
because  I  have  been  at  home  a  week,  and  may  not  go  out  to 
lecture  any  more  this  winter.  But  the  sunlight  of  Beulah  is 
shining  on  her  soul,  and  her  peace  and  trust  is  beautiful  to  see. 
We  hope  for  returning  strength  with  the  spring  time,  yet  the 
struggle  just  now  is  painful — it  is  terrible. 

Last  Sabbath  afternoon,  Mr.  Wiley,  our  pastor,  two  of  the 
deacons  and  a  number  of  members  of  the  Church  came  to 
Carrie's  room  and  the  ordinance  of  the  Lord's  supper  was 
administered  there.  It  was  a  scene  most  impressive  and 
touching,  and  I  cannot  tell  you  how  profoundly  the  patient 
little  sufferer  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  sitting  at  the  table  of 
the  Master  whom  she  has  served  so  gently  and  lovingly,  in  the 
shadowed  paths  of  suffering. 

And  now,  I  wish  you  would  ask  for  letters  of  dismission 
from  the  Burlington  Church  for  Carrie  and  me,  to  unite  with  the 
Lower  Merion  Baptist  Church,  at  Bryn  Mawr,  Pennsylvania. 

We  have  deferred  this  so  long,  because  our  membership 
with  the  First  Church  of  Burlington  has  been  and  is  a  very 
tender  tie,  that  holds  us  very  strongly  to  a  city  and  a  church 
very  dear  to  us.  In  the  church  to  which  we  now  say  good-bye, 
we  have  met  friends  dearer  to  us  than  we  can  tell.  We  have 
formed  friendships  that  will  last  beyond  the  grave.  In  our 
troubles,  loving  hearts  and  hands  ministered  to  us.  In  all 
Carrie's  affliction,  there  was  a  path  worn  from  the  door  of  the 
church  to  our  own  threshold  and  to  her  bedside,  by  the  coming 
and  going  of  brethren  and  sisters,  who  were  brothers  and  sisters 
in  name,  in  heart  and  in  deed.  From  the  pulpit  and  the  choir, 
comfort  of  psalm  and  sermon  have  come  creeping  into  our 
hearts.  From  the  pews,  voices  we  can  never  forget  have  plead 
for  our  strength  and  comfort  at  a  throne  of  grace.  Hands 
have  clasped  ours  in  the  crowded  aisles,  with  a  loving  and 
hopeful  grasp  that  caught  hold  upon  our  hearts.  So  dear  the 
old  church  has  been  and  is  to  us,  so  dear  all  its  memories  and 
the  names  of  our  brethren  and  sisters  there,  that  it  is  more  than 
a  passing  pang  for  us  to  say  good-bye,  and  take  up  the  Master's 
work  in  another  part  of  His  vineyard.  In  all  the  years  wherein 
we  sat  at  the  table  of  our  Lord  with  the  dear  family  of  the  old 
church,  we  can  recall  not  one  hour  that  is  not  sanctified  to  us 
by  beautiful  and  blessed  memories;  not  a  harsh  word,  not  a 
196 


BREAKING  TIES 

cold  hand,  not  one  averted  look.  "Whatsoever  things  are  true, 
whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  what 
soever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatso 
ever  things  are  of  good  report,"  all  these  things  go  to  make  up 
our  memories  of  our  connection  with  the  Burlington  Church. 
Always  we  will  carry  a  love  for  it  in  our  hearts,  we  will  think 
of  it  when  we  pray,  and  it  can  never  be  the  less  dear  to  us, 
because  the  outward  form  of  membership  is  dissolved. 

But  here  is  our  home,  and  here  is  our  work,  and  here  there 
fore  is  the  church  with  which  we  should  walk,  and  labor  and 
take  counsel.  And  here  may  the  prayers  and  love  of  the  old 
friends  strengthen  us  in  the  new  fields,  and  most  earnestly  do 
we  say  "God  bless  you"  as  regretfully  we  say  "Good-bye". 

In  his  diary  late  in  1884  appears  the  following  entry, 
as  though  he  had  desired  to  set  down  for  himself  his 
vivid  recollections  of  Carrie's  last  days: 

Carrie  came  upstairs  early  in  December,  in  the  first  week. 
On  Christmas  I  carried  her  downstairs  to  dinner.  Once  again 
I  carried  her  down  in  January.  She  never  went  into  the  parlor 
after  she  came  upstairs.  Our  anniversary  dinner,  March  4, 
1884,  we  ate  in  her  room.  While  upstairs  she  sat  in  the  den 
all  the  time  while  I  was  away. 

After  I  came  home,  for  a  few  weeks  she  insisted  on  occupy 
ing  the  guest  chamber  in  the  morning  to  avoid  disturbing  me, 
but  about  the  third  or  fourth  week  in  March  I  persuaded  her 
to  stay  in  the  den  all  the  time.  She  never  left  the  dear,  cheery 
old  room  again  until  about  4  o'clock  Sunday  afternoon,  May 
llth,  when  she  said  she  would  have  to  give  up  and  go  to  bed. 
She  said  good-bye  to  the  den  so  tenderly  and  sweetly  as  she 
passed  out,  saying  she  would  never  see  it  again,  and  she  never 
did.  On  Saturday,  May  24th,  Dora  and  I  lifted  her  out  of 
bed  alone  and  for  the  last  time.  She  said  we  lifted  her  so  com 
fortably  and  did  not  hurt  her  at  all.  While  her  bed  was  being 
made  up  she  admired  the  maples  in  the  front  yard.  That 
night  Dora  slept  and  watched  with  her.  Sunday  night  I  took 
Dora's  place,  and  Monday  morning  at  7.15  God  took  her. 

Sunday,  May  18th,  in  the  afternoon  she  sang  "I  am  a 
Pilgrim"  with  Robbie  and  me.  About  the  middle  of  the  week 

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ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

she  sang  one  verse  of  it  with  me,  but  was  too  exhausted  to  sing 
any  more  until  her  pilgrimage  closed. 

It  was  4  o'clock  Thursday,  May  29th,  when  the  casket  was 
placed  in  the  vault.  Tuesday,  June  10th,  Dea.  Lee,  Dr,  McL., 
Mr.  Pearce  and  I  carried  her  to  her  bed  in  the  lot,  and  at  3.45 
we  looked  down  at  the  pretty  casket  flower  covered,  and  said 
good-bye.  We  saw  her  peaceful,  beautiful  face  Monday  and 
again  Tuesday. 

His  subsequent  life  at  Ardmore  was  simple,  and  he 
joined  with  affection  and  interest  with  the  wholesome 
and  home-loving  folk  of  that  little  community  in  their 
social  and  church  life.  His  friend,  Dr.  H.  A.  Arnold, 
writes  of  his  place  in  the  village  life: 

The  old  Lower  Merion  Baptist  Church  received  Robert  J. 
Burdette  into  its  membership  very  soon  after  his  removal  to 
Ardmore.  After  a  short  residence  in  Ardmore  he  removed  to 
Bryn  Mawr,  where  proximity  enabled  him  to  enter  fully  into 
church  activities.  Giving  of  his  time  and  ability  to  the  various 
phases  of  home  church  work,  he  had  a  wider  vision,  saw  a 
Macedonian  field,  and  heard  an  unuttered  call  from  Merion 
Square — unuttered  because  in  our  humbleness  we  could  not 
hope  for  spiritual  ministrations  other  than  the  Sunday  School 
sessions,  the  after  session  services  conducted  once  a  month  by 
the  pastor,  and  the  Friday  evening  prayer  meeting.  The  suc 
cess  attending  these  activities  emboldened  us  to  build  a  very 
pretty  stone  chapel.  In  its  tower  hung  a  sweet-toned  memorial 
bell,  the  gift  of  Brother  Burdette. 

His  interest  in  our  work  grew  as  he  became  better  ac 
quainted,  and  we  often  had  his  very  welcome  presence  at 
prayer  meetings  and  special  services;  in  fact  his  ministrations 
became  so  constant  that  he  jokingly  styled  himself  our  pastor. 

He  was  a  most  welcome  speaker  at  our  anniversary,  Christ 
mas,  Easter  and  other  special  services,  and  occupied  the  pulpit 
so  frequently  that  he  felt  thoroughly  at  home  there,  so  much  so 
that  he  offered  himself  as  preacher  for  Sunday  evening  services 
if  we  desired  to  hold  them.  Gratefully  accepting  the  mag 
nanimous  offer,  regular  services  were  instituted,  and  our 
preacher  traveled  many  miles  returning  home,  when  on  lecture 
198 


BREAKING  TIES 

tours,  to  keep  his  preaching  appointment.  Bearing  us  in  mind, 
when  away,  he  would  send  word  by  mail  announcing  subject 
and  hymns  selected  for  the  services  the  following  Sunday  night. 

During  this  time  he  brightened  our  homes  many  times  by 
pastoral  (?)  calls.  The  memory  of  these  home  visitations  is 
still  fresh  notwithstanding  the  lapse  of  years;  and  sermon 
notes  catching  the  brilliant  gems  of  thought  and  language  are 
still  in  my  possession,  reminders  of  services  wherein  we  all  sat 
enraptured  by  his  eloquence  and  pathos. 

Without  realizing  it,  he  had  entered  a  training  school  of 
the  Father's  providing,  wherein  he  might  be  prepared  for  the 
greater,  better  work  ahead,  the  crowning  glory  of  his  life. 

In  1890  a  Sunday  School  in  Ardmore  became  a  necessity, 
and  in  one  year  it  outgrew  its  rented  quarters  and  demanded  a 
building  of  its  own.  To  start  a  building  fund  he  offered  us  a 
lecture.  Notwithstanding  a  most  unfavorable  night  we  real 
ized  more  than  one  hundred  dollars  with  which  to  start  our 
fund.  We  soon  erected  the  building  that  in  a  few  more  years 
became  the  home  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  of  Ardmore. 

He  was  ever  a  friend  of  this  new  cause,  and  we  had  his 
encouraging  presence  and  ministrations  on  numerous  occasions. 
These  labors,  like  those  at  Merion  Square,  were  labors  of  love, 
and  were  requited  only  by  gratitude  and  affection.  All  efforts 
looking  toward  remuneration  were  kindly,  yet  firmly  repulsed, 
and  the  only  occasion  when  our  appreciation  assumed  a  tangi 
ble  form  was  at  one  of  our  Sunday  School  anniversaries  at 
Merion  Square,  when  we  surprised  him  by  the  gift  of  a  watch 
and  chain.  Tears  filled  his  eyes  as  he  responded  in  language 
that  expressed  heartfelt  emotions. 

In  his  work  among  us  he  merited  the  plaudit  "inasmuch 
as  ye  did  it  unto  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  did  it 
unto  me". 

It  was  indeed  an  humble  work,  but  it  was  the  prelude  to 
the  greater  work  the  Master  had  for  him  in  the  beautiful 
summer  land  of  everblooming  flowers,  where  he  spent  the  sun 
set  of  a  life  full  of  golden  deeds. 

His  works  do  follow  him. 

After  twelve  years  of  newspaper  work  with  the 
Hawk-Eye,  he  resigned  from  that  paper  in  the  same 

199 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

year  his  wife  died,  1884.  In  the  course  of  his  life  at 
Ardmore  he  had  formed  newspaper  and  syndicate 
connections  that  made  considerable  demands  upon 
his  time.  He  worked  indefatigably  and  consistently 
while  at  home,  entering  his  "den"  early  in  the  morn 
ing  and  applying  himself  closely  until  noon  or  later. 

He  contributed  to  the  Brooklyn  Eagle,  following 
the  death  of  the  brilliant  humorist,  Stanley  Huntley, 
and  "the  Burdette  letter"  was  a  feature  of  the  Eagle 
for  many  years.  As  usual,  it  was  a  potpourri  of  political 
comment,  humorous  and  philosophical  paragraphs, 
with  occasional  verses. 

He  wrote  the  Hawk-Eye,  tendering  his  resignation, 
upon  which  the  Hawk-Eye  made  this  comment: 

The  Hawk-Eye  was  Mr.  Burdette's  opportunity.  It  was 
the  avenue  by  which  he  was  introduced  to  the  American  public 
and  his  genial,  kindly,  sparkling  and  unique  humor  was  first 
revealed.  Mr.  Burdette  was  also  the  Hawk-Eye's  most  valued 
attache".  Through  the  sparkling  vivacity  and  pure  and  infec 
tious  wit  with  which  he  enlivened  its  columns,  the  Hawk-Eye 
was  given  an  'open  sesame'  to  thousands  of  homes  in  every 
state  and  territory  of  the  United  States,  through  all  the  prov 
inces  of  Canada,  in  England,  France  and  Australia. 

It  will  not  be  possible,  perhaps,  to  fully  supply  his  place. 
His  humor  is  as  unique  as  it  is  innocent,  as  bright  as  it  is  pure; 
it  invades  every  phase  of  human  life,  it  colors  all  events, 
political  or  social,  with  its  own  radiance;  it  finds  appreciation 
in  every  walk  in  life;  it  is  enjoyed  by  the  humblest,  and  is 
relished  by  the  most  refined;  it  never  descends  to  the  gross  and 
coarse,  but  is  always  high  in  its  moral  tone,  pure  in  its  social 
allusions  and  amuses  without  wounding. 

For  several  years  Mr.  Burdette's  career  has  been  drifting 
away  from  newspaper  work  and  he  only  consented  to  retain 
his  connection  with  the  Hawk-Eye  because  of  the  identity  of 
its  growth  with  his.  It  is  not  easy  for  him  now  to  say  "adieu" 
and  it  is  not  easy  for  the  management  or  his  associates  editori 
ally  to  bid  farewell  to  one  who  is  remembered  as  the  light  of 
200 


BREAKING  TIES 

the  sanctum  when  he  was  daily  at  his  desk.  From  the  "devil" 
in  the  composing  room  and  the  carriers  in  the  press  room  to  the 
editor-in-chief  and  manager,  every  employee  or  attache  yielded 
cordial  friendship  to  Robert  J.  Burdette  which  will  continue 
as  personal  as  it  was  voluntary.  The  Hawk-Eye  will  still 
regard  his  success  as  its  own  and  will  take  the  same  pride  in 
his  literary  achievements  as  though  he  continued  identified 
with  its  own  prosperity. 

Running  through  all  his  records  there  was  always 
an  indication  of  some  form  of  religious  observance  of 
the  Sabbath  under  all  conditions,  as  this  excerpt, 
written  on  the  eve  of  leaving  Ardmore,  shows: 

The  last  Sunday  in  the  "den"  in  "Doubting  Castle",  we 
arose  at  eight,  wearied  with  packing  all  Saturday.  We  did 
not  go  to  church.  After  prayers  and  a  page  from  "  Morning  by 
Morning  ",  we  sat  in  the  den.  Robbie  read  "  Examiner  Stories  " 
and  the  Sunday  School  lessons  in  the  National  Baptist  aloud, 
all  other  books  having  been  taken  from  the  den.  Then  we 
read  a  sermon  by  Spurgeon  from  Romans,  15,  30  to  33.  In  the 
morning  we  stood  a  while  on  the  back  porch,  looked  at  the 
lawn;  in  the  evening  we  chatted  in  the  den  of  the  possibili 
ties  of  the  new  home. 


201 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

THE  strain  of  the  lecture  platform  began  to  tell 
upon  Mr.  Burdette.    On  several  occasions  he 
declared  his  intention  to  forsake  the  platform 
for  the  quieter  life  of  the  country  gentleman, 
engaged  solely  with  literature,  but  often  the  importuni 
ties  of  the  bureaus  caused  him  to  break  his  resolution. 
It  was  but  natural  that  he  should  at  last  wish  to 
leave  Ardmore  and  " Doubting  Castle",  which  was  his 
rather  pathetic  designation  of  the  cottage  in  which  he 
had  seen  so  much  of  distress  and  sorrow,  and  where  he 
had  said  his  last  good-bye  to  the  invalid  wife.      He 
remained  there  until  March,  1886,  and  early  in  the 
summer,  with  "Dedie"  (Miss  Garrett)  and  Robin,  who 
was  then  nine  years  of  age,  he  went  to  the  Adirondacks 
to  seek  nature's  best  restorative.    It  was  in  that  summer 
that  he  filled  a  church  pulpit  for  the  first  time,  although 
he  had  been  neither  licensed  nor  ordained  as  a  minister. 
Possibly  his  filling  of  the  pulpit  was  somewhat  in  self- 
defense,  for  on  Sunday,  June  20th,  an  entry  in  his 
diary  reads: 

Drove  to  the  Baptist  Church  and  heard  the  awfullest  sing 
ing  and  oh!  the  awfullest  preaching.  The  sermon  was  one  of 
Spurgeon's  greatest,  but  the  duffer  who  stole  it  murdered  it. 
It  was  terrible.  We  will  never  go  again. 

Evidently  he  reconsidered  his  determination,  and 
consented  himself  to  fill  the  pulpit,  for  on  Saturday, 
July  10th,  occurs  the  following  entry: 

Rainy  morning;  terrific  thunderstorm  last  night.  Tents 
dry  as  powder;  rain  held  up  a  little  after  breakfast.  We  drove 

202 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  IN  BRYN  MAWR  DAYS 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

to  North  Creek,  shopped,  dined  at  the  American,  and  returned 
home,  reaching  the  tents  at  6  P.  M.  Got  to  bed  late.  Stayed 
up  after  supper  and  wrote  my  two  sermons. 

That  summer,  he  always  insisted,  was  one  of  the 
most  important  in  his  life.  The  freedom  from  the 
responsibilities  and  cares  of  the  platform,  the  woods 
and  the  out-of-doors,  and  the  evident  earnestness  with 
which  the  neighborhood  people  received  his  ministry, 
led  him  to  consider  seriously  the  ministry  as  his  real 
life's  work,  and  it  is  significant  that  a  year  or  so  later 
he  was  licensed  to  preach  by  the  little  Lower  Merion 
Church  at  Bryn  Mawr. 

There  were  other  joys  in  that  summer,  and  notable 
was  the  close  companionship  which  always  existed 
between  him  and  his  son.  An  entry  in  his  diary  in 
July  says: 

Robbie  and  I  went  a-fishing.  Took  58  trout,  most  of  them 
very  nice  ones.  Robbie  fell  through  a  hole  in  the  ground  into 
the  brook.  Brooks  in  this  country  have  a  way  of  wandering 
around  underground  in  most  unexpected  places,  and  the  crust 
is  so  thin  that  anyone  could  fall  through  it  anywhere. 

His  work  for  the  Eagle  occupied  him  for  a  part  of 
the  time  he  gave  to  writing,  and  what  with  the  caring 
for  his  camp  establishment,  the  making  of  rustic  furni 
ture,  the  gathering  of  wild  strawberries,  and  tramping 
through  the  woods  and  by  the  brooks,  it  was  a  joyous 
summer  in  many  ways.  His  ministry  continued  in  the 
church  until  camp  was  broken  in  September,  and  at 
that  time  those  to  whom  he  had  preached  gathered  to 
bid  him  good-bye,  and  to  make  him  a  substantial 
offering  of  money  for  his  services.  He  took  from  it  one 
silver  dollar  as  a  memento,  and  the  balance  he  asked 
to  be  returned  to  the  donors,  or  expended  in  some  cause 
they  might  approve. 

203 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

His  own  account  of  the  gradual  change  in  his  views 
with  reference  to  humor  as  expressed  from  the  platform, 
and  what  he  felt  to  be  the  greater  field  of  ministerial 
work,  was  given  long  afterward,  and  contains  the  pic 
ture  of  that  summer  in  the  mountains  and  the  effect 
of  that  simple  ministry  upon  his  beliefs: 

I  have  read  some  lasting  sermons  by  Tom  Hood  and 
Charles  Lamb  and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  and  I  have  seen 
Mr.  Beecher's  congregation  smile,  to  say  the  least.  I  think 
Gough  was  a  pretty  good  preacher,  but  he  has  made  me  laugh 
many  a  time.  Speaking  to  a  class  of  theological  students,  Mr. 
Beecher  once  said,  replying  to  the  question  "whether  it  was 
proper  to  say  anything  in  a  sermon  that  would  make  people 
laugh?" 

"Never  turn  aside  from  a  laugh  any  more  than  you  would 
from  a  cry.  Go  ahead  on  your  Master's  business,  and  do  it 
well.  And  remember  this,  that  every  faculty  in  you  was 
placed  there  by  the  dear  Lord  God  for  His  service.  Never  try 
to  raise  a  laugh  for  a  laugh's  sake,  or  to  make  merry  as  a  piece 
of  sensationalism  when  you  are  preaching  on  solemn  things. 
But  if  mirth  comes  up  naturally  do  not  stifle  it.  If  when  you 
are  arguing  any  question  the  thing  comes  upon  you  so  that  you 
see  the  point  in  a  ludicrous  light  you  can  sometimes  flash  it 
at  your  audience  and  accomplish  at  a  stroke  what  you  were 
seeking  to  do  by  a  long  train  of  argument,  and  that  is  entirely 
allowable.  In  such  a  case  do  not  attempt  to  suppress  laughter. 
It  is  a  part  of  the  nature  God  gave  us  and  which  we  can  use 
in  his  service.  When  you  are  fighting  the  devil  shoot  him  with 
anything." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  my  sermons  are  anything  but  humorous. 
I  have  far  less  liberty  in  that  direction  than  have  other 
preachers.  If  I  told  one  funny  story  in  the  pulpit  it  would  be 
magnified  into  a  score.  When  I  was  pastor  of  the  First  Presby- 
byterian  Church,  in  Pasadena,  it  was  recurrently  reported  by 
some  people  who  never  went  to  that  church  that  any  time  you 
went  by  that  Presbyterian  Church  during  the  hour  of  service 
you  could  hear  the  people  clapping  hands  and  roaring  with 
laughter  at  my  jokes. 
204 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

There  wasn't  a  syllable  of  truth  in  it,  but  such  things  have 
a  sobering  effect  on  me.  I  don't  dare  to  be  so  funny  in  the 
pulpit  as  many  of  my  ministerial  brethren.  And  this  is  a 
grievous  disappointment  to  some  of  my  hearers. 

My  first  pastorate  was  in  the  State  of  New  York,  in  the 
summer  of  1885.  I  was  pastor  of  a  Baptist  Church,  at  "  Pond 
13 ",  in  Warren  County.  I  was  camping  in  the  woods  up  in 
that  country  when  I  received  my  "call".  The  people  came  to 
me  and  said  they  had  no  pastor,  would  I  preach  for  them?  I 
would  and  did.  It  surely  was  a  country  pastorate. 

I  was  camping  on  the  farm  of  Mr.  Bennett  and  he  drove 
me  to  service,  about  four  or  five  miles,  I  think,  every  Sunday. 
When  I  returned  to  Philadelphia,  in  October,  they  offered  me 
most  generous  pay  for  my  poor  services.  I  kept  one  big  silver 
dollar,  and  gave  back  the  rest  of  the  money.  I  had  received 
from  those  warm-hearted  people  more  than  any  money  could 
measure. 

I  have  been  preaching  ever  since,  a  year  or  two,  in  1891-2, 
as  assistant  pastor  of  the  Lower  Merion  Baptist  Church,  Bryn 
Mawr,  Pa.,  during  the  pastorate  of  the  Rev.  B.  MacMacklin, 
now  of  Philadelphia.  In  1888  that  church  licensed  me  to  preach. 

During  my  lecture  seasons,  which  last  from  October  to 
May  and  carry  me  all  over  the  United  States,  I  have  always 
preached  every  Sunday  so  that  my  "one  day  pastorates"  are 
scattered  over  this  country  from  Maine  to  Texas.  You  might 
have  heard  me  when  I  preached  in  Madison  Avenue  Baptist 
Church,  New  York  City,  some  time  in  1893,  I  think. 

In  fact,  I  don't  see  how  you  can  have  missed  hearing  me 
some  Sunday  during  the  last  eighteen  years.  In  March,  1898, 
I  accepted  a  call  as  supply  for  the  First  Presbyterian  Church 
of  Pasadena,  CaL,  and  continued  as  acting  pastor — "stated 
supply",  the  Presbyterians  call  it — for  a  little  over  a  year.  In 
all  that  time  I  remained  a  Baptist  and  they  continued  to  be 
Presbyterians.  Nothing  separated  us  but  the  baptistry.  And 
if  ever  I  find  sweeter,  more  lovable  people  I  will  have  to  go  to 
heaven  to  look  for  them. 

At  the  close  of  that  pastorate  I  once  more  resumed  my  lec 
ture  work,  preached  once  or  twice  a  week  from  Dan  to  Beer- 
sheba,  returned  home  and  accepted  the  call  to  the  pastorate  of 
the  Temple  Baptist  Church,  of  Los  Angeles. 

205 


ROBERT  J.   BTJRDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Receiving  a  questionnaire  from  a  brother  minister 
concerning  missions,  Mr.  Burdette  answered  it  very 
fully,  by  saying: 

I  hardly  know  how  to  answer  your  letter.  I  am  a  very 
young  pastor.  I  was  ordained  less  than  five  years  ago  and  this 
is  my  first  regular  pastorate.  My  friends  are  kind  enough  to 
tell  me,  with  charming  frankness,  that  I  have  no  executive 
ability  whatever,  that  I  am  a  man  without  methods  and  without 
system.  I  plead  guilty  to  all  those  charges. 

I  attribute  everything  that  Temple  Church  has  done  or 
does  in  all  lines  of  Christian  activity  to  the  spirit  of  the  prayer- 
meeting,  which  is  the  great,  strong  meeting  of  the  church  and 
is  also  conducted  by  its  method-less  pastor  without  any  system. 
I  would  excommunicate  anybody  who  suggested  a  series  of 
prayer-meeting  topics  running  through  the  year.  Neither  the 
church  nor  myself  know  longer  than  a  week  in  advance  what 
we  are  going  to  talk  about  and  pray  about  at  the  next  meeting, 
and  not  infrequently  the  announced  topic  is  ignored  utterly 
after  its  announcement. 

I  came  to  the  church  without  any  seminary  training  and 
without  any  experience  in  leading  a  church.  When  I  was 
ordained  someone  asked  one  of  my  deacons  whether  his  pastor 
knew  any  theology.  "Oh,"  he  said,  apologetically,  "he  knows 
a  little,  but  not  enough  to  hurt  his  preaching."  I  had  one 
qualification  for  the  ministry.  All  my  life  I  have  been  intensely 
fond  of  people,  and  I  told  the  flock  that  if  they  would  only  love 
one  another  and  their  pastor,  I  would  never  ask  anything  else 
of  them.  They  fell  in  with  the  idea,  and  every  time  the  pastor 
asks  them  for  money  for  any  cause  whatever,  they  respond 
cheerfully  and  lovingly. 

When  the  time  comes  round  for  the  annual  missionary 
sermon,  I  sigh  in  heaviness  of  spirit  and  gird  up  my  intellectual 
and  spiritual  loins  and  sit  down  to  one  of  the  burdens  of  the 
year,  "the  preparation  of  a  missionary  sermon".  The  other 
twenty-five  or  thirty  or  forty  missionary  sermons  which  I 
preach  out  of  the  joy  and  love  and  the  hope  of  my  heart,  during 
the  year,  are  never  burdens  to  me,  and  they  are  the  ones  that 
bring  the  money  in  spite  of  the  annual  missionary  sermon.  I 
always  make  the  "appeal"  as  we  call  it,  myself,  because  I  know 

206 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

my  people  better  and  if  I  am  not  to  hurt  anybody's  feelings  I 
know  when  to  stop.  So  many  times,  when  I  have  been  an 
onlooker  in  other  churches,  I  have  seen  the  dollars  fall  out  of 
the  basket  by  the  hundred,  scooped  out  by  the  fatal  "  one  word 
more"  and  "another  thought". 

The  Temple  is  a  missionary  church,  ardently,  enthusias 
tically  so.  I  have  observed  as  each  cause  is  presented  that  it 
is  considered  "the  most  vitally  important  of  all  missionary 
causes",  and  it  is  always  a  great  joy  to  me  to  find  that  we  are 
invariably  disappointed  with  the  smallness  of  our  offering. 
This  makes  us  hopeful  and  zealous  for  the  next  year. 

If  I  have  not  conveyed  to  you  in  this  letter  how  little  I 
know,  say  so,  and  I  will  write  a  longer  one  which  will  convince 
you  that  I  know  less  than  nothing. 

With  pleasant  memories  of  good  old  days  and  dear  old 
friends,  of  whom  you  are  always  One  (with  a  capital  0). 
Affectionately  yours, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

Again  Mr.  Burdette  wrote: 

To  return  to  the  question,  "  How  does  it  feel  to  turn  from 
humorist  to  preacher?"  Well,  the  transition  has  been  so 
gradual,  extending  over  a  period  of  eighteen  years  of  preaching 
and  writing  and  lecturing,  that  the  shock  isn't  very  apparent. 
Besides,  it  has  been  up  hill  all  the  way. 

I  have  seen  it  stated  that  I  "wearied  of  the  strenuous  life 
of  the  lecture  field  and  sought  ease  in  the  pastorate".  Well, 
I  have  tried  both.  If  I  want  an  easy,  lazy  time  I  would  con 
tinue  to  roam  around  the  country  with  half  a  dozen  lectures, 
each  one  so  old  that  it  will  say  itself,  after  you  get  it  started, 
and  change  my  audience  every  day. 

Intellectually,  popular  lecturing  is  the  laziest  occupation 
on  earth,  next  after  acting,  of  course.  But  to  go  into  the 
pastorate,  to  face  two  fresh  sermons  every  week,  with  all 
manner  of  unexpected  addresses  coming  in  to  fill  up  the  time, 
in  this  day  of  intellectual  activity  and  alertness,  when  the  con 
gregation  demands  that  every  sermon  shall  be  the  best,  the 
man  who  seeks  the  pastorate  for  a  vacation  will  find  far  more 
quiet  and  ease  and  meditative  restfulness  in  falling  down  stairs 
with  a  kitchen  stove  or  dodging  automobiles  on  racing  day. 

207 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Upon  his  return  from  the  sojourn  in  the  Adirondacks 
there  were  intervals  of  boarding,  lecturing  and  house- 


•  (3-cuy        c^^sir&t     yvis 


A  CHARACTERISTIC  "  GOOD-BYE  "  FROM  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE 

hunting,  for  the  atmosphere  of  "Doubting  Castle", 
with,  its  environment  of  reflection,  was  depressing  to 

208 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

him,  and  in  the  following  year  he  settled  in  the  adjoining 
village  of  Bryn  Mawr,  where  for  more  than  ten  years 
he  made  his  home,  the  house  in  which  he  lived  being 
affectionately  designated  as  "Robin's  Nest". 

From  here,  during  those  days,  he  made  his  pilgrim 
ages  in  the  lecture  season,  and  here  he  did  his  literary 
work  and  entered  again  into  the  life  of  the  community. 
He  made  his  first  literary  connection  there  with  Edward 
W.  Bok,  then  at  the  head  of  the  Bok  Syndicate  Press, 
and  later  editor  of  the  Ladies  Home  Journal,  and  he 
went  with  Bok  from  the  columns  of  the  syndicate 
occasionally  into  the  columns  of  the  Ladies  Home 
Journal. 

A  letter  early  in  their  acquaintance  replying  to  a 
request  from  Mr.  Bok  for  copy  is  typical: 

I  have  read  your  letter  with  great  pain,  and  serious  con 
cern.  I  am  grieved  to  see  that  you  at  your  early  age,  are 
becoming  avaricious.  Oh,  Edward,  the  love  of  money  is  one 
of  the  roots  of  evil,  and  I  mourn  to  see  a  young  man  begin  to 
root  early.  Oh,  conquer  this  measureless,  grasping  greed  that 
is  absorbing  your  young  life.  Do  not  want  all  the  money  there 
is  going;  let  me  have  a  scoop  at  it  now  and  then. 

Well,  I'll  tell  you;  I  am  not  greedy  myself;  I  only  want 
all  I  can  get.  I'll  go  you  on  your  proposition;  $40  a  week  for 
me  (and  Jay  Gould's  income  for  you)  and  I  will  write  for  the 
Eagle  just  as  at  present,  but  no  more;  and  will  write  for  no 
other  newspapers,  save  through  your  management;  and  will 
send  you  anywhere  from  2500  to  4000  words  a  week,  in  the  form 
of  letters  or  sketches  as  you  wish;  "was  you  thinkin"  at  all 
of  poetry?  It  would  come  dearer,  for  when  a  person  comes  to 
grind  off  poetry  night  after  night,  it  is  but  right  he  should  expect 
to  be  paid  for  its  weakening  effect  on  the  mind.  But  not  being 
a  regular  poetry  professional,  I  should  be  loath  to  engage 
myself  for  that;  and  therefore  when  I  drop  into  poetry,  I 
should  ask  to  be  considered  "so  fur  in  the  light  of  a  friend". 

Again  warning  you  to  conquer  the  growing  spirit  of  avarice, 
which  I  fear  is  marking  you  for  its  own,  dear  Edward,  I  am. 
u  209 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

In  this  unusual  form  Mr.  Burdette  once  sent  an 
invitation  to  Mr.  Quimby  to  visit  him: 

DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 
July  4th,  1894. 

When,  in  the  course  of  Human  Events,  it  becomes  necessary 
for  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  smell  gunpowder  and 
burning  paper  and  punk  and  dust  all  the  day  long;  to  catch 
rocket  sticks  in  their  eyes,  to  step  on  exploding  torpedoes,  to 
dodge  runaway  horses,  to  trail  after  processions,  to  listen  to 
inaudible  orations,  and  to  perform  various  acts  of  martyrdom 
to  show  their  love  of  country,  a  decent  respect  for  their  own 
comfort  requires  that  they  should  declare  their  love  of  a  country 
by  fleeing  to  the  country; 

We  hold  that  all  men  are  created  tolerably  equal;  that  they 
are  endowed  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  each  of  which 
carries  with  it  its  complemental  left;  that  certain  specified 
rights  have  descended  to  and  should  be  enjoyed  by  the  Quimby 
family  especially,  among  which  is  the  Right  and  Duty — 

To  board  certain  street  cars  and  railway  trains  as  may 
best  suit  their  convenience  at  an  early  hour  on  the  morning  of 
July  Fourth,  A.  D.  1894,  and  proceed  with  all  careful  diligence 
to  the  Suburban  Station  of  Bryn  Mawr,  there  to  rendezvous  at 
the  habitation  of  one  or  two  Robert  J.  Burdette,  senior  and 
junior,  and  Miss  Dora  H.  Garrett,  on  Penn  Street,  known  on 
old  maps  as  Fisher's  Road,  there  to  possess  themselves  of  the 
lawn,  the  piazza,  and  the  castle,  from  turret  to  foundation 
stone,  until  the  shades  of  night  shall  wrap  the  globe  in  three-ply 
darkness. 

See  that  you  fail  not  at  your  peril. 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

In  June,  1891,  not  long  after  the  arrival  of 
"Dappy",  as  he  affectionately  called  his  father,  he 
wrote  to  his  sister  Mollie: 

The  weather  is  cool.  Father  is  greatly  depressed;  he  has 
had  a  hen  on  13  duck  eggs  for  about  a  month  or  less,  and  at 
last,  with  a  great  flourish  of  cackling  trumpets  from  all  the  other 
denizens  of  Crocus  Hall,  and  much  dubious  clucking  on  the 

210 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

part  of  the  astonished  step-mother,  she  has  come  off  with  one  (1) 
to  wit,  one  duck.  He  seems  kind  of  lost  among  the  chicks, 
and  goes  around  whistling  through  his  nose  in  a  shrill  and  lone 
some  manner.  Truly,  when  a  hen  suspends  publication  of 
diurnal  eggs  and  goes  into  retirement  on  a  secluded  nest  in  a 
close  and  ill-ventilated  apartment  for  single  hens,  she  knows 
not  what  that  day  three  weeks  may  bring  forth. 

We  are  all  in  average  health.  Father  is  rapidly  becoming 
acquainted  in  Bryn  Mawr.  He  knows  everybody  in  the 
village  by  sight  and  name.  At  first  this  might  seem  incredible 
to  you,  but  the  mystery  is  made  somewhat  clearer  when  you 
are  informed,  what  you  have  possibly  surmised,  that  he  bows 
politely  and  speaks  courteously  to  everybody,  which  accounts 
for  the  slight  acquaintance,  and  calls  everybody  Fisher,  except 
those  whom  he  accosts  as  "Richards",  and  a  very  few  select 
acquaintances — 25  or  30 — who  are  graven  on  the  tablets  of  his 
friendship  as  the  "Beveridges".  This  kind  of  simplifies  the 
nomenclature  of  a  very  large  and  constantly  increasing  circle 
of  acquaintances.  I  might  mention  that  he  has  recently 
formed  the  acquaintance  of  a  most  charming  lady,  whom  he 
calls  Mrs.  Morton.  She  is  the  wife  of  the  Rev.  James  Haugh- 
ton,  our  neighbor,  rector  of  the  Episcopal  Church  of  the 
Redeemer. 

To  his  sister  he  wrote  intimately  of  the  family  life, 
revealing,  as  in  many  other  ways,  how  the  little  inci 
dents  made  up  his  life: 

Notwithstanding  the  sultry  weather,  which  is  not  sultry 
but  quite  contrary,  which  it  is  cool  enough  in  the  shade  when 
the  wind  blows,  father  is  sort  of  miserable  from  a  heavy  cold 
which  the  same  he  sits  in  the  cool  and  drafty  places  on  the 
piazza  and  lets  the  wind  blow  on  his  head  without  any  hat  on, 
no  wonder  he  takes  cold  and  we  know  it  is  nobody's  fault  but 
his  own  for  he  has  a  brand  new  hat  which  came  home  Saturday 
night  at  9  o'clock  and  was  worn  all  through  the  hen  house  and 
the  chicken  yard  just  prior  to  being  worn  to  church  Sunday 
morning  which  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  never  arrayed  in 
a  hat  like  that  or  wouldn't  have  been  if  we  hadn't  captured 
it  in  time  and  brushed  it  off  not  Solomon  but  father. 

211 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Father  has  been  elected  Superintendent  of  Crocus  Hall 
(it  is  suspected  that  he  secretly  voted  for  himself)  without  a 
dissenting  voice  and  has  now  on  his  hand  a  large  contract  to 
rear  chickens  and  keep  the  table  supplied  with  fresh  eggs. 
Nobody  else  is  permitted  to  interfere  with  the  hens.  They 
all  like  the  new  Superintendent  very  much  indeed  and  whenever 
a  hen  evolves  a  Negg,  she  lifts  up  her  voice  and  calls  for  him — 
"  Cut-cut-cut-cut-ca-DAP-py ! " 

Robbie's  schol  with  another  o  in  it,  closed  iast  Friday  and 
the  Junior  acquitted  himself  very  creditably  indeed  in  a  declama 
tion — "Thoughts  for  the  Discouraged  Farmer".  There  were 
a  number  of  other  declamations,  also,  but  nothing  worth  listen 
ing  to  after  that.  The  little  man  is  very  ambitious  and  is 
going  to  keep  up  his  studies  all  summer,  with  his  father  for 
tutor.  It  is  his  own  idea,  and  he  went  to  work  in  solid  earnest 
this  morning. 

Bryn  Mawr  church  is  stili  pastorless.  Father  leads  the 
prayer  meetings — I  think  the  people  will  be  loath  to  see  him 
relinquish  the  desk  after  we  get  a  pastor.  It  is  a  delight  to 
our  souls — we  of  the  household,  to  see  him,  after  being  so  long 
unappreciated  by  the  Burlington  church,  taken  up  with  such 
cordial,  earnest,  sincere  appreciation  here  in  the  shadow  of 
Philadelphia,  and  fairly  compelled  to  take  the  place  which 
belongs  to  him.  You  would  think  he  was  the  senior  deacon  of 
the  church.  We  are  going  to  have  him  preach  over  at  Merion 
Square  in  two  weeks — I  said  Merion  Square  and  I  meant  it, 
and  I  am  going  to  stick  to  it — and  then  I  suppose  they  will 
have  no  use  for  anyone  else  over  there. 

I  have  the  lov-liest  roses  this  summer  you  ever  saw.  I 
have  also  about  9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000  rose  bugs. 
Help  yourself.  They  ate  the  E  out  of  loveliest.  Only  it  wasn't 
that  kind  of  an  e. 

Dora  complains  of  feeling  a  little  better.  She  has  not  been 
dangerously  ill,  but  only  slimpsey.  Father  seems  feeble,  except 
when  he  sneezes;  then  he  blows  the  vines  down.  Robbie  and 
I  are  quite  chirk.  So  no  more  at  present.  With  much  love 
from  all  of  us. 

ROB. 

Always  there  was  the  deepest  and  tenaerest  affec 
tion  and  reverence  for  his  father  underneath  all  the 
212 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

bubbling  effervescence  of  his  humorous  descriptions. 
This  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  in  November,  1891: 

Did  I  tell  you — I  don't  believe  I  did — something  so  sweet 
and  pathetic.  The  other  evening,  when  the  sun  was  gone  and 
before  the  lamps  were  lighted,  I  was  busy  at  something  in  the 
music  room.  Father  was  sitting  in  a  "snug  harbor"  he  has 
taken  to  himself;  the  bay  window  in  the  dining  room,  you 
remember  it;  looks  out  on  the  Mather  place  and  the  Fisher 
homestead.  It's  handy  for  father,  as  he  is  in  and  out  all  day, 
and  doesn't  like  to  climb  the  stairs  to  the  den  too  often.  Dora 
has  furnished  the  bay  window  with  a  pretty  wicker  table  with 
shelf  for  his  books,  a  reading  rack  from  my  office,  chair,  rocker, 
etc.,  and  it  is  the  coziest  sort  of  a  corner.  Well,  he  was  rocking 
there  after  the  twilight  hid  the  lines  in  Armitage's  "  History  of 
the  Baptists",  and  I  heard  him  singing.  The  old  baby  songs, 
the  old  hymn  tunes,  not  to  the  words  of  the  Hymnal,  but  the 
"Bye,  oh  baby,  bye,  oh  bye",  I  peeped  out  to  see  him.  The 
dear  old  figure;  his  arms  folded  on  his  breast;  the  long  silver 
hair  falling  on  his  shoulders,  the  snowy  beard,  whiter  than 
ever  in  the  November  twilight,  a  little  quiver  in  the  voice  as 
he  sat,  looking  out  at  the  fading  landscape,  singing  again  to 
the  children  grown  into  manhood  and  womanhood,  some  of 
them  singing  to  children  of  their  own.  Nothing  could  be 
sweeter  or  more  touching.  A  gentle,  loving,  sweet  old  man. 

In  an  interval,  when  the  condition  of  his  throat  sent 
him  home  from  lecturing,  he  wrote: 

I  am  home  also,  not  because  I  want  to  be,  but  because  I 
have  to  be.  Been  down  in  West  Virginia;  rasped  my  voice  to 
pieces,  finally  lost  it;  got  caught  in  the  floods;  came  home 
voiceless;  medical  examination;  appalled  to  learn  that  all  the 
latin  parts  of  my  throat  are  congested,  in  addition  to  which, 
I  have  acute  inflammation  of  some  things  I  never  knew  were 
in  my  neck  at  all.  Don't  know  how  they  got  there,  either, 
"less'n  dey  done  crawl  up  my  trouser  laig";  am  laid  off  the 
platform  for  a  week  or  ten  days,  but  hope  and  expect  to  resume 
work  then. 

It  was  all  a  simple,  peaceful,  ideal  kind  of  living, 
those  summer  days  at  Bryn  Mawr.  Mollie  was  taken 

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ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

suddenly  and  seriously  ill  in  the  fall  of  1891,  and  a  letter 
from  the  brother  is  alive  with  tender  sympathy  and 
colored  with  his  always  ready  humor,  showing  the  quick 
transition  of  his  mind  from  the  humorous  to  the 
genuinely  serious  point  of  view: 

What  a  heartless  old  world  it  is,  anyhow.  How  little  do 
we  care  for  one  another.  Yesterday,  while  you  lay  in  what 
pain  and  suffering  we  do  not  know,  we  were  out  in  the  woods 
with  Dora  Weston,  gathering  nuts.  Your  brother  Robert  was 
high  up  in  a  swaying  hickory  tree,  mauling  the  branches  with 
a  club;  far  down  below,  Dora  Garrett  and  Dora  Weston  were 
prowling  through  the  woods,  gathering  shellbarks  and  braiding 
their  gowns  with  arabesque  patterns  of  "beggar's  lice"  and  in 
the  clear  swift  flowing  Ithan  Creek,  your  father,  with  his  noble 
old  head  crowned  with  long  flowing  silver  locks,  had  his  panta 
loons  rolled  up  to  his  knees,  and  was  wading  around,  much  as 
his  daughter  Mary  waded  in  the  mountain  brook  up  the  Matil- 
laja  canon.  This  morning  he  said  at  the  breakfast  table,  that 
"the  sudden  change  in  the  weather  last  night  had  given  him 
a  cold".  Some  foolish  person  suggested  that  wading  in  the 
creek  in  October  might  have  had  something  to  do  with  it.  The 
"poof!"  of  scorn  which  greeted  the  silly  suggestion  fairly  made 
the  white  beard  curl.  He  said  "that  wade  did  him  good;  if 
he  was  where  he  could  take  one  every  day  he  would  never  have 
a  cold".  We  brought  home  a  wagon  load  of  shellbarks,  butter 
nuts,  walnuts,  and  I  think  some  15  or  20  chestnuts,  some  with 
worms  in,  and  a  few— 5  or  6  maybe,  without.  That's  about 
the  usual  proportion. 

But  we  didn't  forget  you,  dear,  if  we  were  climbing  and 
wading.  A  postal  from  Mrs.  Collette  met  us  on  our  way  out, 
and  assured  us  that  you  were  quite  encouraged  concerning 
yourself.  And  this  had  to  content  us  through  the  day,  while 
we  wait  for  the  next  word  by  this  morning's  mail.  We  do  hope 
you  are  growing  better  all  the  time.  And  that  other  people 
are  encouraged  as  well  as  yourself. 

And  for  a  little  time,  now,  good-bye.  God  bless  and  keep 
you.  So  full  of  manifold  trials  have  the  days  of  your  pilgrimage 
been — surely  if  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not 
worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed 
214 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

in  us,  there  must  be  abundance  of  glory  in  store  for  you.  Surely 
you  can  rest  your  head  and  heart  on  this  pillow — "  He  knoweth 
the  way  that  I  take;  when  He  hath  tried  me,  I  shall  come 
forth  as  gold.  My  foot  hath  held  His  steps,  His  way  have  I 
kept,  and  not  declined." 

Love  and  hope  and  prayers  from  all  of  us.  Looking  for 
good  news  from  you  every  day. 

A  characteristic  letter  is  from  the  Tremont  House 
in  Boston  in  January  of  the  following  year: 

Lectured  in  old  Salem  Wednesday  night,  where  they  used 
to  burn  the  witches.  Funny  hall.  Amphitheatre,  like  lecture 
room  in  medical  college,  lecturer  stands  at  bottom  of  cistern, 
people  sit  all  around  him.  Two  or  three  good  buggy  top  hats 
shut  out  three-fifths  of  the  audience.  About  five  minutes 
after  lecture  began,  woman  had  a  fit.  Five  or  six  men  carried 
her  out  with  her  feet  in  the  air.  Then  at  the  close  of  lecture 
man  read  a  dispatch  announcing  verdict  in  Guiteau  case. 
Crowd  cheered  and  clapped  their  hands.  So  with  fit  at  one 
end  and  hanging  at  other,  humorous  lecture  passed  off  very 
cheerfully  indeed. 

And  in  another  letter  he  pays  this  tribute  to 
"Dedie": 

What  the  Nest  would  do  without  Dora  to  flutter  and  hover 
and  brood  over  it,  I  don't  know.  Little  would  it  avail  old 
Robin  to  fly  across  the  country,  twittering  from  platform  to 
platform  and  bringing  home  "grub"  in  his  chattering  bill,  if 
there  were  no  Dora  to  keep  the  Nest  in  order  and  take  care  of 
three  helpless  boys  "aging"  from  the  little  man  of  14  to  the 
grand-sire  of  71.  ... 

In  summing  up  his  joys  in  work  and  play  near  the 
close  of  his  Bryn  Mawr  life,  and  after  twenty-five  years 
of  newspaper  work,  he  gives  this  account  of  himself: 

I  am  an  early  riser.  Six  o'clock  sees  me  reluctantly  crawl 
ing  out  of  a  bed  where  I  have  been  utterly  unconscious  for 
eight  hours.  "Six  o'clock  isn't  early?"  Well,  any  man  who 
is  in  the  habit  of  rising  earlier  than  that,  unless  the  house  is  on 

215 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

fire,  should  consult  a  physician.  Before  breakfast,  I  take  a 
short  walk,  say  to  the  nearest  apple  or  pear  tree,  if  the  fruit  is 
in  season.  That  is  about  forty-five  feet  from  the  door.  That 
is  all  the  exercise  I  take  before  breakfast.  If  I  had  to  walk 
a  mile  to  breakfast  I  would  simply  omit  the  cheery  meal  of 
incense  breathing  morn,  that's  all. 

I  do  not  even  read  the  morning  paper  till  breakfast  is 
served;  then  it  is  read  aloud  to  the  family  with  interlineations 
and  running  comments  which  the  audience  has  long  since 
learned  to  recognize  and  interpret.  It  is  rather  confusing, 
however,  to  guests  who  happen  to  be  present,  and  who  are 
sometimes  observed  during  the  day  to  be  searching  the  paper 
for  personal  notices  and  little  items  of  home  news  that  are 
only  visible  through  the  family  spectacles.  From  eight  o'clock 
until  one,  I  am  locked  in  my  den,  doing  with  my  might  what 
my  hand  findeth  to  do.  During  these  hours  I  am  a  dead  man, 
so  far  as  callers  are  concerned.  Not  even  a  card  is  slipped 
under  the  den  door.  Nobody  is  permitted  to  help  me  waste  a 
minute  of  my  work  time. 

In  the  afternoon,  if  at  the  right  time  of  the  year,  I  move  my 
shrubbery  for  the  season.  You  can't  tell  where  you  want  a 
bush  or  tree  until  you  have  watched  it  for  two  or  three  years. 
"Can't,  hey?"  I  tell  you,  I  have  transplanted  fruit  trees  four 
years  old,  with  my  own  hands.  Did  they  live?  Of  course. 
They  wouldn't  have  survived,  but  that  a  neighbor  or  two  came 
along  and  told  me  they  would  die.  That  settled  it.  I  sat  up 
nights  with  those  trees,  watered  them  with  my  tears  and  held 
them  in  my  arms  when  they  seemed  restless  and  feverish,  and 
I  am  eating  pears  and  apples  from  them  in  these  fruitful, 
happy  days.  There  isn't  a  fruit  tree  on  my  little  acre  that 
hasn't  been  condemned  to  death  half  a  dozen  times  by  some 
man  who  knew  it  all.  I  am  the  most  easy-going,  easily-ruled, 
easily-led  man  on  this  planet.  But  if  there  is  anything  in  life 
I  do  enjoy,  and  love  to  do,  it  is  to  have  some  man  come  along 
and  tell  me  I  can't  do  a  certain  thing,  and  prove  to  me  by  most 
unanswerable  argument  and  undeniable  proof  that  I  can't,  and 
then  go  right  straight  ahead  and  do  it. 

I  don't  believe  I  ever  did  anything  _n  my  life  worth  the 
doing,  save  when  I  was  driven  to  it  by  the  flat  contradiction  of 
man  or  Fate.  If  a  man  pats  me  on  the  back  and  tells  me  that 
216 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

I  can  do  a  bit  of  work  better  than  anybody  else  on  earth,  I  am 
very  liable  to  sniff  the  incense  gratefully  and  take  his  word  for 
it,  and  let  it  go  at  that,  and  do  nothing.  But  if  he  says  I  can't 
do  it,  it  does  my  soul  good  to  do  that  very  thing. 

I  love  to  write.  If  I  were  thirty  years  younger,  I'd  like 
to  go  back  and  take  my  old  desk-place  on  the  Hawk-Eye.  There 
isn't  a  thing  about  desk  work  that  I  do  not  enjoy,  from  the 
moment  of  incubation  to  the  final  revision  of  the  manuscript 
or  the  reading  of  the  last  proof.  I  don't  find  so  much  pleasure 
in  the  completed  sketch;  the  finished  work  hasn't  much  charm 
for  me;  but  down  to  the  very  center  of  brain  and  heart,  I  do 
love  the  work  of  building,  even  such  light  and  flimsy  work  as 
mine,  is  at  its  best,  or  rather,  its  least,  bad. 

As  to  his  favorite  books,  he  said: 

There  are  three  books  I  always  pack  in  my  valise  when  I 
leave  home — the  Bible,  Shakespeare,  Mrs.  Browning.  If  I 
add  a  fourth  it  is  Thackeray;  and  next  to  him  certainly  Charles 
Lamb.  Something  of  Riley  comes  next — "Old  Fashioned 
Roses",  preferably.  Eugene  Field,  of  course.  And  Carlyle 
has  a  never-failing  hold  upon  my  liking.  And  in  my  room, 
handy  for  a  "night-cap"  book,  Thackeray's  "Roundabout 
Papers". 

Some  letters  to  his  son  show  the  tender  and  affec 
tionate  spirit  of  the  man.  Writing  at  Easter,  1898: 

A  happy  joyous  Easter  to  you,  with  all  blessings  for  the 
sunrise  of  your  manhood.  May  you,  like  Joseph  of  old,  be — 

"A  fruitful  bough,  even  a  fruitful  bough  by  a  well,  whose 
branches  run  over  the  wall."  Whose  "  Bow  abode  in  strength, 
and  the  arms  of  his  hands  were  made  strong  by  the  hands  of 
the  Mighty  God  of  Jacob;  .  .  .  Even  by  the  God  of  thy 
father,  who  shall  help  thee;  and  by  the  Almighty,  who  shall 
bless  thee  with  the  blessings  of  heaven  above,  blessings  of  the 
deep  that  lieth  under.  .  .  .  The  blessings  of  thy  father  have 
prevailed  above  the  blessings  of  my  progenitors  unto  the  utmost 
bound  of  the  Everlasting  hills." 

This  letter  written  in  reply  to  an  account  of  the 
class  dinner  at  Haverf  ord  and  to  reach  Bryn  Mawr  upon 

217 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

his  son's  twenty-first  birthday,  expresses  his  breadth 
of  affection,  his  boundless  hope  for  the  man's  future. 
It  reveals  his  love  expressed  in  words  of  rich  meaning 
and  with  the  characteristic  pyramiding  of  subjects  and 
phrases  that  was  his  peculiar  gift: 

Your  letter  of  April  2nd  was  received  here  on  the  5th.  And 
the  Class  Dinner  is  eaten  and  digested?  "Gone  glimmering 
down  the  light  of  other  days — a  school  boy's  tale — the  wonder 
of  an  hour?  "  Gone  are  the  sweets  and  solids;  forgotten  already 
the  taste  of  the  fluffy  things;  the  lips  that  smacked  joyously 
over  a  strange  but  toothsome  entree  are  puckered  over  a  pun 
gent  line  or  a  twisted  root;  the  mouths  that  watered  over 
what  was  coming  next  are  yelling  behind  the  coach  lines;  the 
dinner  is  gone. 

But  always  there  is  something  at  these  banquets  that 
abides.  Somewhere  or  other,  tucked  away  in  the  memory, 
locked  up  in  brain  cell  and  encysted  in  the  heart  as  well.  Some 
thing  of  the  Class  Dinner  there  is,  that  is  thoroughly  assimi 
lated.  It  goes  into  the  blood  and  brawn,  knots  itself  into  the 
toughest  muscles;  knits  itself  into  the  hardest  bone;  turns 
into  "red  blood"  and  throbs  with  human  affections,  with  hope, 
and  courage;  turns  into  gray  matter  and  thinks  and  guides 
these  affections;  ennobles  these  friendships  of  boyhood  and 
young  manhood;  turns  into  fire  and  burns  with  lofty  purpose 
and  pure  fidelity.  Something  "stays  with  you",  Son;  don't 
you  know  it?  And  feel  it?  The  class  dinner  goes  with  the 
class  room;  the  social  element  is  as  much  a  part  of  life  as  is 
the  love  of  the  books.  These  friendships  of  today  will  be 
knitted  more  firmly  tomorrow. 

It  is  a  splendid  thing  to  be  a  Man,  dear.  To  feel  in  your 
soul  and  brain  certain  responsibilities  that  you  must  face  and 
carry  alone.  To  realize  that  Zeebs  and  Dedie  are  now  the  dear 
est  and  most  loving  friends  you  have  on  this  earth,  but  that 
they  can  now  only  say — "I  advise"  and  "I  suggest"  and  "I 
wish".  We  can  no  longer  say  to  you,  with  any  legal  right — 
"Thou  shalt."  Only  God  and  your  conscience  say  that  to 
you  now.  You  are  a  man,  and  you  breathe  free  air  for  the 
first  time  in  your  life.  You  can  come  and  go  as  you  list.  You 

218 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

are  a  man.  And  being  a  man,  you  stand,  as,  in  a  certain  sense, 
you  never  did  before,  face  to  face  with  God's  Eternal  "Must". 
What  he  says  "Must",  must  be.  And  it  must  be  done.  And 
there  is  no  avoiding  it.  Rebels  or  willing  subjects,  at  the  last 
every  man  has  to  do  God's  will. 

How  splendidly  you  are  equipped  for  manhood's  responsi 
bilities.  Two  women,  with  their  unselfish  loves,  and  pure 
ambitions  for  you,  and  sweet  purposes  for  you,  have  gone  into 
your  very  life — little  Momsie  and  Dedie.  Your  educational 
atmosphere  has  been  clear  and  godly.  You  have  breathed  a 
good  air.  Your  years  of  preparation  have  been  pleasantly 
environed.  You  are  a  well  equipped  and  a  well-drilled  soldier. 
Therefore,  much  is  expected  of  you. 

I  am  so  glad  for  you,  dear.  The  growing  years  mean  so 
much.  My  own  didn't  have  a  good  trend.  The  camp  and  the 
barrack-room,  the  trench  and  the  fort  are  not  the  best  schools 
for  the  highest  character.  The  "  Mulvaney ' '  and  Kipling  stand 
ards  of  personal  honor  and  fidelity  to  duty  may  be  high  enough, 
but,  their  moral  standard,  if  not  positively  low,  is  painfully  lax. 
God  be  thanked  you  have  escaped  this.  You  don't  have  to 
race  against  a  handicap. 

And  yet,  my  own  dear  Boy,  dearest  and  best  and  truest 
and  Best-Loved  Comrade,  even  with  the  best  preparations, 
the  camp  and  the  barrack  influence  somehow  get  into  every 
man's  life  a  little  bit.  And  the  Man  must  rise  above  them. 
Sin  lieth  in  wait.  It  is  a  young  lion;  strong,  brave,  defiant, 
cruel.  "A  man's  foes  shall  be  they  of  his  own  household" — 
of  his  own  life  and  heart  and  mind. 

Now,  dear  Boy,  the  devil  didn't  make  us.  God  made  man 
after  His  own  image.  The  devil  has  no  creative  power.  He 
can  only  disfigure,  defile,  corrupt,  what  God  has  made;  that's 
all.  When  God  breathed  the  soul  into  the  Man,  he  breathed 
into  him  a  spark  of  divinity — a  touch  of  the  God.  He  breathed 
into  him  every  impulse  that  he  has;  every  desire,  every  passion, 
and  made  him  pure  as  the  angels  with  them  all.  Now  remem 
ber,  you  have  no  passions  that  are  not  given  you  of  God.  Keep 
them  pure  as  he  intends  you  shall,  and  every  one  of  them  will 
add  manly  strength  and  vigor  to  your  soul  and  arm  and  brain. 
Don't  let  sin  abuse  them.  Don't  let  the  devil  disfigure  them. 
They  come  of  God;  use  them  for  him,  and  at  the  last  surrender 
them  to  Him  again,  pure  and  clean  as  He  gave  them. 

219 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

A  thousand  congratulations,  my  dear,  dear  Son!  May  all 
the  years  of  your  manhood  come  to  you  freighted  with  work 
and  responsibilities,  with  good  hope,  good  heart,  good  courage, 
good  purpose.  You  remember  what  old  Polonias  says  to 
Laertes:  . 

"To  thine  own  self  be  true 
And  it  shall  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  can'st  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 

All  the  world  is  before  you,  dear  Prince!  And  all  space! 
And  all  Time!  Make  conquest  of  Destiny  then!  " Steady! 
Forward— Guide  right — March!"  Hip — hip — Hurrah!  And 
again — hurrah!  !  And  once  more — Hurrah!  !  !  Give  you  God 
speed,  dear  Prince! 

Most  lovingly,  your 

FATHER 

And  this  letter  written  upon  the  boy's  twenty-first 
birthday: 

You  were  a  happy  child.  The  happiest  child  all  the  year 
round,  I  ever  knew  in  my  life.  And  all  your  resources  were 
within  yourself.  Your  happiness  was  heaven-born.  Your  joy 
was  in  your  heart.  You  were  as  happy  and  content  in  your 
home,  with  only  your  three  "grown-ups",  Little  Momsie,  and 
Dedie  and  Zeebs,  about  you  as  you  were  with  a  house  full  of 
children.  Indeed  you  were  at  your  happiest  at  home. 

And  now  the  days  of  your  boyhood  are  over.  A  boy's 
heart  you  will  carry  in  your  breast  for  many  years,  I  hope.  A 
boy's  happiness;  a  boy's  enthusiasms  with  a  man's  purposes 
and  a  man's  powers  and  a  man's  courage.  I  pray  the  years  of 
your  manhood,  in  its  happiness,  the  purity  of  its  joys,  the 
fidelity  of  its  convictions,  may  be  foreshadowed  by  your  boy 
hood.  God  give  you  all  grace  and  strength  and  courage  and 
patience. 

Never  did  he  fail  to  include  the  reflections  based 
upon  his  years  of  experience  and  observation,  for 
instance: 

I  believe  in  practical  education  too,  in  Biology  and  Botany. 
But,  we  can't — and  we  mustn't — all  be  Biologists  and  Botanists. 

220 


ESTABLISHING  ROBIN'S  NEST,  BRYN  MAWR 

The  world  wants  dreamers,  poets,  prophets,  dear — they  are  all 
three  the  same — Bunyan,  Shakespeare,  Isaiah — as  well  as  Botan 
ists  and  Biologists.  Biology  and  Botany  have  changed  and 
"reviewed  their  own  decisions"  and  reversed  their  teaching 
many  times  since  Bunyan,  Shakespeare  and  Isaiah.  But  they 
have  not  changed.  It  seems  to  me  that  Poetry  is  nearer  Truth 
than  anything  else  in  the  world.  God  himself  was  Poet  and 
Artist  when  he  formed  this  planet.  Look  at  it! 

The  activities  of  this  period  of  his  life  as  reflected 
through  his  letters  were  centered  at  Robin's  Nest, 
for  which  he  held  an  affection  greatly  enhanced  be 
cause  of  its  setting.  Bryn  Mawr — a  rare  bit  of  Old 
England  in  a  corner  of  his  native  State — appealed  to 
his  intense  love  of  nature. 

He  thus  wrote  of  it: 

Bryn  Mawr — a  dimple  on  the  landscape;  its  artistic  varie 
ties  in  home  architecture;  lawns  that  are  dreams  and  gardens 
that  are  visions;  roads  and  drives  that  are  smoother  and 
cleaner  and  harder  the  oftener  it  rains;  its  shaded  lanes,  with 
a  fringe  of  snowy-blossomed  or  crimson-berried  dogwoods  under 
the  overhanging  chestnuts,  and  maples,  old  oaks  and  great 
tulip-poplars;  and  such  incomparable  woodland  strolls  over 
leafy  carpets  and  moss-grown  paths;  delightful  wood  roads 
that  entice  you  into  the  heart  of  the  woods,  and  there  fade  into 
a  squirrel  track  that  disappears  up  a  tree,  and  so  leaves  you 
most  happily  lost — a  thousand  miles  from  human  help  and  only 
ten  miles  from  Philadelphia;  brooks  that  run  beside  the  paths 
in  the  woods,  babbling  and  chattering  and  whispering,  and 
always  coming  back  close  to  the  path,  after  they  have  run  away 
from  it,  like  a  playing  child,  for  all  the  world  as  though  the  path 
had  been  there  the  longer,  and  the  brook  would  get  lost  if  it 
got  too  far  out  of  sight;  the  green  meadows;  the  gentle  slope 
of  the  hills;  and  everywhere  such  woods — such  woods! 


221 


CHAPTER  IX 

CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

MANY  were  the  interesting  incidents  of  his 
career  from  the  beginning  of  his  Hawk-Eye 
days  to  his  leaving  Bryn  Mawr.  On  one 
occasion,  when  he  visited  at  Denver,  a  News 
reporter  and  Rev.  Myron  W.  Reed,  the  brilliant 
preacher  who  died  a  number  of  years  ago,  called  upon 
him  at  the  same  time.  Burdette,  Riley  and  Reed  were 
friends  of  the  old  days  when  Burdette  was  accustomed 
to  visit  Riley  at  Indianapolis. 

" He  and  Riley  came  in  on  me,"  said  Reed,  "about 
six  o'clock  Sunday  night,  when  they  knew  I  would  be 
busier  than  a  pirate,  and  they  sat  down,  one  on  each 
side  of  me,  and  told  me  to  go  right  on  writing,  and  then 
commenced  to  tell  stories  across  me.  I  did  not  write 
much." 

He  and  Reed  talked  at  the  same  time  of  "Bill"  Nye, 
a  common  friend. 

"When  Nye  went  to  New  York,"  said  Burdette, 
"we  were  a  little  anxious  to  see  how  he  would  stand 
transplanting  to  the  East.  Riley  showed  me  a  letter 
Nye  wrote  to  him  in  which  he  said  he  had  been  intro 
duced  to  Mrs.  Langtry  and  Mrs.  James  Brown  Potter, 
and  their  forwardness  so  disgusted  him  that  he  'thanked 
the  Lord  that  He  had  given  his  share  of  beauty  to  Mrs, 
Langtry  and  his  hair  to  the  Seven  Sutherland  Sisters/ ' 

In  the  same  exchange  of  recollections  with  Reed, 
Mr.  Burdette  said: 

I  used  to  write  on  the  trains,  but  I  don't  any  more.  Once 
in  a  while  I  get  out  my  pad  and  put  a  beautiful  point  on  a 
222 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

pencil  and  number  about  twenty-five  pages,  and  then  I  suddenly 
discover  that  my  hat  is  in  the  seat  back  of  me  and  my  throat 
feels  like  a  lime  kiln,  and  my  head  is  back  and  I  suspect  that  I 
have  been  snoring,  and  from  the  pleased  look  on  the  faces  of 
my  fellow-travelers,  I  am  sure  that  my  diagnosis  is  right,  and 
I  start  for  the  water  tank  and  feel  like  staying  there. 

Again  he  told  of  this  incident: 

Riley  visited  us  at  Bryn  Mawr,  and  you  should  have  seen 
the  time  he  had  trying  to  fix  up  his  routes  through  New  Jersey. 
He  hadn't  any  idea  of  locality,  and  a  time-table  was  perfectly 
blind  to  him.  The  one  he  had  had  several  columns  showing 
the  population  of  the  town  and  also  the  fare.  At  last  he  turned 
to  me  in  despair.  "Look  at  this  thing,"  he  said,  "it  hasn't  got 
any  sense.  All  I  can  find  out  is  that  I  arrive  at  Lambert  at 
3,324  and  leave  there  at  $2.47." 

I  went  home  from  a  lecture  trip  one  time  and  found  Jim 
sitting  in  the  depot.  I  said  he  must  come  home  with  me.  It 
was  while  my  wife  was  in  the  hospital,  which  was  only  a  block 
from  the  depot.  He  demurred  and  said  he  hadn't  time,  but  I 
rushed  him  off,  and  called  in  my  wife  and  my  boy  and  sent  for 
the  doctor  and  introduced  him  to  everybody,  and  finally  noticed 
that  at  every  introduction  they  laughed.  Finally  I  said,  "Jim, 
how  long  is  it  since  you  were  here?"  and  he  said,  "Yesterday." 
I  had  been  introducing  him  to  folks  he  knew  better  than  I  did. 

His  work  was  inspirational,  and  the  consistent  and 
sustained  effort  required  in  building  a  novel  was 
impossible  for  him: 

There  is  one  thing  I  cannot  do  [he  said],  I  cannot  write  a 
serial  story.  My  work  has  always  been  daily  newspaper  work, 
which  teaches  a  fellow  to  finish  his  story  in  one  issue.  Several 
times  I  have  been  asked  to  write  a  serial,  have  promptly 
accepted,  sat  down  to  my  work,  outlined  the  story,  and  then 
finished  the  whole  business — introduced,  married  and  killed 
the  whole  outfit  in  the  first  chapter,  had  to  create  a  new  family 
for  the  second  chapter,  start  a  new  settlement  for  the  third, 
and  import  a  shipload  of  immigrants  for  the  fourth.  Somehow 
I  cannot  give  my  characters  the  blessing  of  long  life.  Loved  of 
the  gods,  they  die  young. 

223 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

At  fifty-two,  in  a  newspaper  interview  at  Spokane, 
he  said: 

I  would  rather  write  than  lecture,  and  I  used  to  do  both, 
but  now  when  I  travel  about  the  country  with  a  lecture,  my 
pen  grows  rusty.  One  thing  at  a  time  is  enough.  Good  men 
are  scarce,  my  son,  and  I  must  take  care  of  myself  for  the  sake 
of  the  American  people.  I  am  seven  years  older  than  Bill  Nye 
was  when  he  carried  his  laughter  into  the  silent  land.  Two 
years  older  than  Eugene  Field.  Seven  years  older  than  Bunner 
of  Puck,  who  is  now  fighting  for  his  life  in  San  Francisco. 
Older  than  Riley  who  was  wearily  struggling  through  brain 
fever  in  Indianapolis,  and  you  see  the  patriarch  has  to  be  mind 
ful  of  his  strength.  All  these  men  I  knew  in  the  early  days. 
Met  them  often  and  loved  them  well.  Learned  the  serious 
side  of  their  laughing  lives,  and  knew  the  deep  octave  of  humor 
— pathos,  that  throbbed  in  their  hearts. 

As  if  he  was  to  receive  compensation  for  such 
appreciation  of  others,  in  later  years  an  author  who 
had  received  a  kindly  note  from  him,  wrote  to  a  mutual 
friend: 

Such  a  beautiful  letter  from  Mr.  Burdette — a  man  who  recalls 
for  us  more  fully  than  any  other  living  writer,  the  humor  and 
pathos  of  Dickens.  It  quite  thrills  me  with,  I  trust,  a  feeling 
better  than  vanity,  to  find  anything  done  by  one's  obscure  self 
noted  by  such  a  man. 

And  Mr.  Bok,  as  late  as  1913,  penned  this  appre 
ciation: 

To  my  mind  no  man  has  ever  equalled  you  in  your  marvelous 
combination  of  the  humorous  with  the  philosophical.  And  you 
will  stand  alone  as  the  best  exponent  of  that  peculiarly  effective 
combination  in  writing! 

He  had  nothing  of  sham  or  hypocrisy,  and  little  of 
emotional  hero  worship.  He  was  disposed  to  give 
things  their  proper  value,  as  in  an  article  on  "The 
Laughter  of  Yesterday": 

224 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

Many — most — of  the  stones  of  men  of  our  own  day  and 
generation  lack  interest  for  the  public  mind  because  they  are 
too  personal.  They  belong  to  the  dead  men's  intimate  friends. 
After  he  has  been  dead  100  years  this  element  is  eliminated, 
it  has  faded  out.  What  remains  is  of  the  immortal  part  of  the 
man.  It  is  that  which  belongs  to  posterity. 

Not  long  ago  Phillips  Brooks'  letters  to  the  children  of  his 
household  were  published  in  one  of  the  magazines,  and  simply 
because  they  were  written  by  Phillips  Brooks.  They  were  just 
such  letters  as  almost  any  man  might  have  written  to  the 
children  at  home,  and  at  the  risk  of  being  burned  at  the  stake 
for  heresy,  one  may  say  the  same  thing  of  many  of  the  letters 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  now  being  published.  Some  of 
them  may  be  characteristic.  Many  of  them — most  of  them — 
are  like  many  of  the  letters  you  have  written  and  do  write  to 
your  mother,  and  if  your  mother  may  be  placed  on  the  stand, 
she  will  convince  the  jury  that  your  letters  are  vastly  more 
entertaining  and  original. 

In  the  old  days,  when  "  Youth  beheld  all  happiness  gleam 
ing  in  the  prospect",  I  have  strolled  about  the  streets  of  St. 
Louis  with  Eugene  Field,  marking  the  trail  by  a  mile  of 
"giggle".  Could  any  of  the  things  at  which  I  laughed  make 
you  laugh  now?  No;  rather  they  would  make  you  pity  us 
for  our  light-mindedness,  because  the  giggle  belonged  to  the 
time  and  the  place  and  the  friends  who  giggled.  Like  Emerson's 
sea-weed,  I  could  not  bring  home  with  the  weed  cast  up  by 
that  light,  foam-crested  tide  of  our  laughter,  the  cry  of  the 
gulls,  the  long  line  of  coast,  the  wash  of  the  waves  on  the  beach, 
the  glint  of  the  sunshine  on  the  shells. 

To  drag  Eugene's  drolleries  out  of  their  environment  is  to 
pluck  up  a  dainty  wild  flower  by  its  roots  from  its  mossy  bed 
in  some  forest  glade,  carry  it  in  your  hot  hands  several  miles 
through  the  summer  sun,  and  then  plant  it  in  the  garden  of 
roses. 

His  newspaper  method,  what  might  be  termed  his 
creed,  with  respect  to  his  fellows,  is  indicated  in  one  of 
his  comments  after  years  of  newspaper  work: 

Every  time  you  are  tempted  to  say  an  ungentle  word  or 

write  an  unkind  line,  or  say  a  mean,  ungracious  thing  about 

15  225 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

anybody,  just  stop;  look  ahead  twenty-five  years  and  think 
how  it  may  come  back  to  you  then.  Let  me  tell  you  how  I 
write  mean  letters  and  bitter  editorials,  my  boy.  Sometimes 
when  a  man  has  pitched  into  me  and  "cut  me  up  rough",  and 
I  want  to  pulverize  him  and  wear  his  gory  scalp  on  my  girdle 
and  hang  his  hide  on  my  fence,  I  write  a  letter  or  editorial  that 
is  to  do  the  business.  I  write  something  that  will  drive  sleep 
from  his  eyes  and  peace  from  his  soul  for  six  weeks.  Oh,  I  do 
hold  him  over  a  slow  fire  and  roast  him!  Gall  and  aqua  fortis 
drip  from  my  blistering  pen.  Then — I  don't  mail  the  letter, 
and  I  don't  print  the  editorial! 

There's  always  plenty  of  time  to  crucify  a  man.  The 
vilest  criminal  is  entitled  to  a  little  reprieve.  I  put  the  manu 
script  away  in  a  drawer.  Next  day  I  look  at  it.  The  ink  is 
cold;  I  read  it  over  and  say:  "  I  don't  know  about  this.  There's 
a  good  deal  of  bludgeon  and  bowie-knife  journalism  in  that. 
I'll  hold  it  over  a  day  longer."  The  next  day  I  read  it  over 
again.  I  laugh,  and  say  "Pshaw!"  and  I  can  feel  my  cheeks 
getting  a  little  hot.  The  fact  is,  I  am  ashamed  that  I  ever 
wrote  it,  and  I  hope  that  nobody  has  seen  it,  and  I  have  half 
forgotten  the  article  or  letter  that  filled  my  soul  with  rage,  I 
haven't  hurt  anybody,  and  the  world  goes  right  along,  making 
24  hours  a  day  as  usual,  and  I  am  all  the  happier. 

Try  it,  my  boy.  Put  off  your  bitter  remarks  until  tomor 
row.  Then,  when  you  try  to  say  them  deliberately,  you'll  find 
that  you  have  forgotten  them,  and  ten  years  later,  ah!  how 
glad  you  will  be  that  you  did!  Be  good-natured,  my  boy. 
Be  loving  and  gentle  with  the  world,  and  you'll  be  amazed  to 
see  how  dearly  and  tenderly  the  worried,  tired,  vexed,  harassed 
old  world  loves  you. 

His  humor  pervaded  everything,  and  was  so  cun 
ningly  applied  it  disarmed  many  a  critic.  When  his 
bureau  managers  were  dissatisfied  with  the  criticisms 
and  comments  he  had  selected  for  a  folder  which  was 
designed  to  be  circulated  in  connection  with  the  pub 
licity  to  be  given  his  lectures,  he  had  printed  for  them 
an  eight-page  folder,  a  page  of  which  may  be  repro 
duced: 

226 


CASUAL   INCIDENTS 

Introducing 
ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE 

"Where  is  our  usual  Manager  of  Mirth?" — Midsummer  Night's 
Dream. 

"  I  knew  him,  Horatio,  a  fellow  of  infinite  jest,  of  most  excellent 
fancy." — Hamlet. 

"0,  you  shall  see  him  laugh  till  his  face  be  like  a  wet  cloak  ill 
laid  up." — Henry  IV. 

"A  merrier  man, 

Within  the  limits  of  becoming  mirth 
I  never  spent  an  hour's  talk  withal." 

— Love's  Labor  Lost. 

"From  the  crown  of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his  foot  he  is 
all  mirth — he  hath  a  heart  as  sound  as  a  bell,  and  his  tongue  is 
the  clapper;  for  what  his  heart  thinks,  his  tongue  speaks." — 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing. 

"His  eye  begets  occasion  for  his  wit; 
For  every  object  that  the  one  doth  catch, 
The  other  turns  to  a  mirth  loving  jest." 

— Love's  Labor  Lost. 

After  two  pages  of  such  flattering  comment  from 
Shakespeare,  he  followed  it  with  equally  pertinent 
selections  from  Milton,  Thackeray  and  Carlisle,  with 
the  observation  that  surely  the  approval  of  these 
eminent  men  should  convince  any  one  he  was  alto 
gether  worth  hearing. 

Some  of  the  humorous  incidents  of  his  lecture 
experience  he  has  written  in  his  own  inimitable  way. 
This  account  of  a  Southern  incident  is  worth  preserving: 

If  I  had  not  been  a  Funny  Man,  I  might  have  been  a 
Railroad  Magnate  or  a  Corporation  Lawyer  or  some  other  of 
those  Get-rich-quick  Concerns.  One  morning,  two  years  ago, 
I  missed  connection  at  Nashville.  I  had  an  engagement  to 
lecture  in  Louisville  that  night — a  most  important  one,  before 

227 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

the  John  A.  Broadus  Camp  of  Confederate  Veterans.  I  just 
naturally  had  to  get  there.  When  I  found  the  train  upon 
which  I  was  an  ex-passenger  had  gone  and  left  me,  I  flew  to  the 
"Ellen  N"  and  pled  for  a  special.  The  officials  sympathized 
with  me  and  let  me  have  a  special  for  187  miles  at  one  dollar 
per.  That  from  a  lecturer!  When  Mr.  Morgan  set  out  to  buy 
the  Louisville  &  Nashville,  if  he  had  come  to  me  I  could  and 
would  have  told  him  exactly  what  Mr.  Gates  would  do  to  him. 

But  it  was  a  groundhog  case  with  me,  so  I  went  down  into 
my  narrow-gauge  wallet  and  fished  up  the  $187,  which  left  me 
just  enough  to  go  without  dinner  and  climb  to  my  private  car 
in  solitary  and  penniless  grandeur.  They  gave  me  a  nice  little 
light  engine,  and  the  man  in  the  cab  made  the  wheels  go  round, 
and  we  slid  the  State  of  Tennessee  underneath  us  at  seventy 
miles  an  hour.  All  went  well  until  we  got  within  about  sixty- 
five  miles  of  Louisville,  when  we  caught  up  with  the  train  that 
had  run  away  from  me  in  the  morning,  with  the  engine  crippled, 
or  in  the  ditch,  or  something.  And  they  didn't  do  a  thing  but 
take  my  nice  little  "pay  car"  engine  and  hook  it  on  to  that 
great  emigrant-tourist-and-general-express  train.  It  was  like 
hitching  up  a  dainty  little  three-minute  "stepper"  to  a  coal 
cart.  We  crawled  along,  with  occasional  stops  for  breath,  and 
drifted  into  Louisville  about  nine  o'clock  or  after. 

Mrs.  Burdette  was  in  Louisville,  and,  getting  a  wire  about 
my  detention,  she  went  over  to  the  hall  and  held  the  audience 
for  me,  but  many  had  escaped  before  she  got  there,  and  the 
committee  claimed  damages.  And  as  they  held  the  bag,  I 
naturally  held  the  umbrella.  But  after  I  had  settled  with  the 
committee  I  put  on  my  war  paint,  then  painted  it  over  with  a 
soft  coat  of  sweet  Quaker  dove-color,  mixed  with  the  oil  of 
kindness,  which  I  have  ever  found  to  be  a  little  the  best  fighting 
color  on  earth,  and  sailed  into  the  office  of  Superintendent 
Johnson.  Somebody  had  signalled  him  there  was  a  torpedo 
boat  in  the  roadstead  and  he  was  ready  for  me.  He  fired  a 
shot  to  windward,  and  we  came  to  close  action. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "if  we  hadn't  given  you  that  special  train 
you  could  not  have  reached  Louisville  at  all,  could  you?" 

"No,  sir,"  I  said,  so  meekly  that  even  my  dove-colored 
paint  faded  to  a  soft  ashes-of-roses  hue. 

"And  by  the  service  of  our  special  you  did  make  your 
engagement?" 
228 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  said. 

"And  without  it  you  would  have  lost  your  engagement, 
your  fee  and  disappointed  your  audience?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  said. 

"And  you  would  have  had  large  damage  to  pay  for  failure 
of  contract?" 

"Indeed  I  would,"  I  said. 

"And  we  really  saved  all  that  for  you,  didn't  we?" 

"Indeed  you  did,"  I  assented. 

"Well,  then,"  he  went  on,  "  I  don't  see  what  claim  you  have 
for  any  rebate." 

I  told  him  I  didn't  want  a  cent  of  rebate.  I  was  perfectly 
willing  to  pay  for  my  train. 

"Then,"  he  said,  "what  do  you  want?" 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I  want  pay  for  my  engine  and  my  service. 
I  want  pay  for  hauling  the  United  States  mail,  the  express 
matter,  baggage  car,  the  smoker,  three  day  coaches  and  a 
Pullman.  I  want  my  pro  rata  on  all  the  tickets  and  fares 
collected  on  that  train.  I  want  my  mileage  on  all  that  stuff, 
human  and  merchandise  for  sixty-five  miles.  That  was  my 
engine  that  hauled  that  train  into  Louisville.  I  don't  want 
much;  I  only  want  all  I  can  reach  my  arms  around  and  what 
little  there  may  be  outside  of  'em." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "suppose  we  cut  the  price  of  your  special 
in  two — how  would  that  strike  you?" 

I  said  that  was  the  very  thing  I  had  up  my  sleeve.  The 
Superintendent  applied  the  axe  to  the  bill,  a  clerk  signed  a  check 
and  gave  it  to  me,  and  we  parted  friends. 

He  told  also  in  his  later  years  how  one  of  Riley's 
cleverest  platform  stories  came  to  be.  During  a  visit 
with  Riley  some  years  ago,  Mr.  Burdette  having  gone 
to  Indianapolis  when  Riley  was  recovering  from  a 
stroke  of  apoplexy,  they  exchanged  many  recollections, 
and  Mr.  Burdette,  in  writing  of  the  visit,  said: 

Riley  talked  a  great  deal,  and  with  very  tender  and  loving 
laughter,  of  Bill  Nye,  his  old  time  yoke-fellow.  Riley  knew 
better  than  any  other  man  perhaps,  the  pathetic  shadows  that 
drifted  across  Nye's  patient,  brave,  hopeful  life.  For  years  he 

229 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

was  a  sick  man,  and  many  nights  he  was  at  his  work  on  the 
platform  when  he  should  have  been  in  the  hospital. 

Bill  was  good-natured,  even  with  the  bores  whom  Riley 
slammed  down.  One  morning  on  their  lyceum  tour  through 
Georgia,  they  landed  in  a  city  where  they  knew  by  past  experi 
ence  they  would  be  assailed  by  self-appointed  delegations  of 
entertainers.  They  would  be  importuned  to  take  long  drives 
over  rough  and  dusty  roads,  to  see  things  they  had  seen  a  thou 
sand  times  and  didn't  want  to  see  the  first  time.  They  would 
be  dragged  away  to  luncheon  with  people  who  made  them  tired 
and  dragooned  to  dinner  with  folk  who  bored  them.  And  Jim 
rebelled.  They  obtained  privacy  in  their  own  rooms  long 
enough  to  wash  their  faces  and  the  poet  said: 

"Bill,  here's  where  I  shake  the  committee  on  hospitality. 
I'm  not  going  out  of  my  room  till  we  go  to  the  hall  tonight. 
I'll  play  ill,  I'll  do  anything  but  wear  myself  out  listening  to  a 
lot  of  old  stories  badly  told  all  day  and  then  go  before  the  audi 
ence  that  pays  its  good  money  to  hear  us  at  our  best  so  tired 
and  worn  out  that  I  look  and  feel  like  a  shadow  on  the  scenery. 
Let's  send  away  our  genial  friends  and  sleep  till  dinner  time." 

So  Jim  went  dead,  as  he  knows  how  to  do,  but  Bill  couldn't 
bear  to  disappoint  the  committee.  He  came  back  to  dine  at 
the  hotel,  however,  pale  and  tired,  but  faintly  smiling  and  trying 
to  feel  strong  for  the  evening's  work.  Jim  was  mad.  He 
determined  to  teach  Bill  a  lesson. 

"When  we  went  down  to  dinner,"  he  told  it  to  me,  " I  made 
up  my  mind  I'd  give  him  enough  of  old  stale,  worm-eaten 
stories,  such  as  I  knew  he'd  been  feeding  on  all  afternoon.  I 
began  to  tell  him  as  earnestly  as  though  it  was  newer  than  the 
hour,  the  oldest  story  I  ever  heard.  I  heard  the  circus  clown 
tell  it  when  I  was  a  boy  and  the  first  eternity  only  knows  how 
old  it  had  to  be  before  a  clown  would  be  allowed  to  use  it. 

"You've  heard  it  long  before  ever  you  heard  me  tell  it — 
the  old  man's  story  of  the  soldier  carrying  his  wounded  com 
rade  off  the  battlefield — the  comrade  whose  leg  was  first  shot 
off  and  whose  head  was  carried  away  by  a  second  cannon  ball 
on  their  way  to  the  field  hospital. 

"  Well,  I  dragged  the  old  thing  out  as  long  as  I  could,  just 
to  weary  poor  Bill.  I  told  it  in  the  forgetful  fashion  of  an  old 
man  with  confused  memory;  told  the  point  two  or  three  times 

230 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

before  I  came  to  it;  went  back  again  and  again  to  pick  up 
dropped  stitches  in  the  web  of  my  story;  wandered  and  maund 
ered.  Thinks  I,  I'll  give  this  lad  a  taste  of  age-long  stories  that 
will  sicken  him  of  them  forever.  I  made  it  as  long  and  dreary 
as  I  knew  how." 

But  to  Riley's  indignant  amazement  Nye  received  the  nar 
rative  with  convulsions  of  merriment.  He  choked  over  his 
meat  and  drink  until  he  quit  trying  to  eat  and  just  listened, 
giggled,  chuckled  and  roared.  He  declared  it  was  the  best 
thing  Riley  had  ever  done  and  insisted  that  he  put  it  in  his 
program. 

At  first  Riley  thought  his  joke-fellow  had  only  detected 
the  plot  and  was  meeting  it  in  his  own  way.  But  he  convinced 
Jim  that  he  was  in  earnest  and,  after  about  a  month  of  this 
importunity,  Riley  told  the  story  to  an  audience  of  two  thou 
sand  people.  The  galleries  fell,  the  house  went  wild,  and  he  had 
to  tell  it  again.  Ever  after  it  was  one  of  his  funniest  numbers. 
The  story  has  been  told  a  million  times  by  a  hundred  thousand 
people.  But  there  is  but  one  Riley  in  the  hundred  thousand. 

Another  story  of  this  period  of  lecture  life  he  told 
in  his  own  words: 

I  recall  the  last  time  I  appeared  in  Toronto.  Bill  Nye 
had  preceded  me,  and  the  papers  simply  crucified  him.  He 
was  followed  by  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  and  they  went  for 
him  worse  than  they  did  for  Nye.  But  when  I  arrived  I  made 
up  my  mind  that  I  would  win,  and  I  tried  my  best  to  succeed 
and  talked  my  loveliest.  I  felt  so  sure  of  the  result  that  for 
once  I  broke  my  rule  not  to  read  a  paper  before  breakfast,  and 
ordered  up  the  Empire. 

Well,  son,  that  was  the  worst  roast  that  any  man  ever  got. 
The  editor  was  a  man  named  E.  E.  Sheppard,  whom  I  had 
known  in  the  states.  He  was  a  southerner  and  had  gone  to 
Canada  after  the  war,  but  he  had  been  a  friend,  and  to  think 
that  a  man  with  whom  I  had  broken  bread  and  eaten  salt 
could  treat  me  so  was  simply  unbearable.  I  don't  know  to 
this  day  whether  he  saw  the  article  or  not,  but  it  was  a  regular 
cruel  scorcher.  I  packed  up  at  once  and  left,  and  down  at 
Peoria  I  happened  to  pick  up  a  paper  a  few  days  after  and  read 
a  dispatch  to  the  effect  that  the  Empire  office  had  been  de- 

231 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

stroyed  by  fire  the  night  before.  I  headed  straight  for  a  tele 
graph  office  and  sent  this  message:  "Dear  Sheppard:  How  do 
you  like  a  roast  yourself?"  I  did  not  get  an  answer,  but  it 
was  a  consolation  to  me,  I  admit. 

The  Saturday  Evening  Post  in  1902  gave  this  account 
of  a  lecture  experience  showing  his  human  quality: 

In  the  winter  of  1885  two  college  boys  of  Wooster,  Ohio, 
desiring  to  make  some  money  to  get  fraternity  pins,  decided  to 
bring  on  a  lecturer,  and  secured  Mr.  Robert  J.  Burdette  for 
$125.  They  posted  the  town  with  huge  bills  saying,  "He  is 
Coming",  and  later  with  others  saying,  "He  is  Here",  and 
giving  his  name.  The  pasting  of  the  first  lot  was  looked  upon 
as  a  college  prank  and  detectives  were  engaged  to  hunt  for  the 
perpetrators. 

When  the  night  arrived  a  very  small  audience  assembled  in 
the  opera  house.  To  add  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  young  men 
Burdette'was  delayed  by  a  wreck  and  did  not  arrive  until  ten 
o'clock,  by  which  time  some  of  the  audience  were  demanding 
their  money  back.  One  of  the  boys  strove  to  hold  the  audience 
by  reading  telegrams  from  Burdette,  some  genuine  and  some 
fictitious,  giving  his  progress.  The  other  one  went  to  the  train 
to  meet  the  lecturer,  and  Burdette,  noticing  his  long  face  as  they 
rode  back,  said: 

"What's  the  matter?    Haven't  you  got  a  good  house?" 

"No,  indeed;  mighty  poor,"  said  the  young  fellow. 

"Cheer  up,  my  boy,"  said  Burdette;  "cheer  up.  I'll 
never  let  it  be  said  after  I'm  dead  that  any  young  man  ever 
lost  anything  by  Bob  Burdette." 

The  lecture  itself  was  a  success,  lasting  until  past  midnight. 
It  was  Saturday  night  and  at  twelve  o'clock  Mr.  Burdette  took 
out  his  watch  and  announced  the  fact,  and  said  that  if  there 
were  any  ministers  in  the  audience  they  could  be  excused. 

When  it  came  time  to  settle  the  boys  found  that  after  paying 
other  expenses  they  had  but  $66,  and  visions  of  a  forced  draft 
on  father  came  to  one  of  them  and  the  sacrifice  of  a  pet  calf  was 
the  sole  resource  left  to  the  other. 

Burdette  said:  "Well,  boys,  how  much  have  you  left  after 
taking  out  all  the  expenses?    Sixty-six  dollars,  eh?    Well,  there 
are  three  of  us;  that's  just  twenty-two  dollars  apiece." 
232 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

They  insisted  that  he  take  it  all,  but  he  would  not  listen  to 
it.  He  said:  "No,  we  are  all  fraternity  boys  and  we'll  share 
alike.  We  belong  to  another  fraternity,  my  boys,  and  that  is 
the  fraternity  of  humanity.  All  I  ask  of  you  is  that,  if  you 
ever  meet  some  other  young  man  in  trouble  you  will  give  him 
a  lift  and  think  of  Bob  Burdette." 

Characteristics  which  endeared  him  to  his  friends 
and  which  they  hold  in  memory,  are  illustrated  by  the 
reminiscence  of  Mr.  James  B.  Borland,  an  old  Pennsyl 
vania  friend: 

It  was  in  1880  that  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Robert  J. 
Burdette.  He  had  lectured  here  the  year  before,  coming  in  on 
a  train  in  the  middle  of  the  night  from  Emlenton,  in  the  lower 
part  of  our  county,  and  as  there  were  no  night  clerks  in  the 
hotels  here  in  those  days,  he  was  compelled  to  lie  in  front  of 
the  hotel  fire  to  slumber  until  morning.  I  did  not  hear  him  on 
that  occasion,  but  know  that  he  at  once  ingratiated  himself 
into  the  hearts  of  our  people. 

When  he  returned,  in  1880,  he  lectured  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Owls,  a  literary  society,  one  of  the  members  of  which, 
Thomas  Alexander,  who  had  fallen  in  love  with  Burdette  the 
year  before,  filled  in  an  off  night  for  him  at  Warren,  arranging 
with  me  to  go  along  to  look  after  the  business  end.  It  was  a 
bitter  cold  night  in  March,  and  Parshall  Hall,  where  the  lecture 
was  delivered,  was  as  cold  as  the  inside  of  a  refrigerator  in  the 
summer  time.  I  sold  the  tickets  at  the  box  office,  and  when 
Mr.  Burdette  arrived  he  spent  some  time  with  me  there,  during 
which  the  editor  of  a  weekly  paper  presented  his  card.  There 
was  only  a  handful  of  people  present,  and  I  thought  of  calling 
the  lecture  off,  so  I  turned  to  Mr.  Burdette  and  asked  what  I 
should  do.  He  replied:  "Pass  him  in  and  send  out  and  get 
him  a  bottle  of  champagne  and  a  box  of  cigars."  Demurring 
against  going  ahead  with  the  program,  he  said:  "We'll  trot 
for  the  gate  receipts,  anyway."  On  account  of  the  chilly 
atmosphere  of  the  hall,  he  retained  his  overcoat  and  drew  a 
chair  up  to  the  footlights,  where  there  was  a  trifle  of  warmth, 
remarking,  as  he  did  so,  that  the  audience  was  so  small  he  felt 
like  taking  them  on  his  lap.  Then  he  proceeded  to  entertain 
them  in  the  manner  of  which  he  was  a  past  master. 

233 


ROBERT  J.   BTJRDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

The  next  day  he  went  to  Titusville,  and  an  incident  in 
connection  with  our  departure  is  worth  relating,  as  showing  the 
spontaneity  of  his  humor.  The  station  was  a  little,  box-like 
affair,  with  a  narrow  aisle,  and  while  we  were  seated  there, 
awaiting  the  arrival  of  our  train,  a  fanner  wearing  a  heavy 
overcoat,  with  bulging  pockets,  passed  down  the  aisle,  his  coat 
brushing  against  the  people  on  either  side.  "Now  there's  a 
man,"  said  Burdette,  "who  takes  so  much  room  in  this  world 
that  when  he  dies  and  is  buried  in  a  six-inch  coffin  his  friends 
will  take  a  second  look  at  him  to  see  if  he  is  not  lying  on  his  side." 

On  the  train  when  the  "butcher"  came  through  he  dropped 
a  book  in  my  lap  that  proved  to  be  a  copy  of  Burdette's  "  Rise 
and  Fall  of  the  Mustache  and  Other  Hawkeyetems".  Not 
being  aware  of  the  fact  that  such  a  book  was  on  the  market, 
I  naturally  expressed  my  surprise  and  pleasure  and  purchased 
the  copy,  Mr.  Burdette  offering  to  write  an  inscription  on  the 
fly-leaf,  which  he  did,  as  follows: 

MY  DEAR  BORLAND: 

If  you  have  a  friend  and  you  love  him  well, 

Let  my  advice  through  your  friendship  glimmer; 
Print  all  his  vices  in  "nonpareil", 

But  publish  his  virtues  in  big  "long  primer". 
With  the  compliments  of  your  friend,  the  author, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 
On  the  train,  March  9,  1880. 

Needless  to  say,  this  book  is  one  of  my  choicest  possessions, 
as  well  as  the  memory  of  friendship  that  lasted  through  all  the 
years.  I  was  only  in  my  nineteenth  year  when  I  met  him,  and 
on  account  of  my  being  in  the  newspaper  business  at  such  an 
early  age,  he  seemed  to  show  a  particular  fondness  for  me. 
Afterwards,  whenever  he  lectured  anywhere  near  within  an 
afternoon's  ride  by  train,  I  went  to  have  a  visit  with  him,  and 
heard  the  lecture  on  "The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Mustache"  so 
often  that  I  could  almost  deliver  it  myself. 

On  another  occasion  he  visited  Franklin  early  in  April, 
the  season  when  people  were  moving.  After  the  lecture,  with 
one  or  two  others,  we  spent  some  time  in  his  room  at  the  hotel, 
he  and  I  going  for  a  short  walk  before  midnight.  We  ran  across 

234 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

an  acquaintance  of  mine,  who  played  the  violin  for  dances  as  a 
side  issue,  coming  along  the  street  with  his  violin  case  under 
his  arm.  I  naturally  enquired  of  him  where  he  had  been  play 
ing,  and  he  replied:  "At  a  house-warming  in  the  Third  Ward", 
a  practice  often  customary  in  those  days  when  families  sought 
new  abiding  places.  "I'd  like  to  attend  something  like  that," 
said  Burdette,  and  asked  the  acquaintance  if  he  would  not 
return  and  take  us  along.  This  he  readily  agreed  to,  and  it 
was  not  long  after  our  arrival  that  he  was  the  center  of  attrac 
tion,  himself  playing  the  violin  while  the  dozen  or  more  people 
danced.  I  relate  this  incident  merely  to  show  his  versatility 
and  how  easily  he  could  adapt  himself  to  his  environment. 

The  last  visit  he  made  to  Franklin  was  at  my  initiative. 
I  wrote  the  Bureau  for  a  date,  just  for  the  sake  of  bringing  him 
on  for  an  old-time  visit.  They  fixed  on  a  time  in  October,  and 
after  I  had  announced  it  in  my  paper,  some  of  the  young  ladies 
of  the  Methodist  church  called  on  me  to  inquire  under  whose 
auspices  he  was  coming.  I  explained  the  matter  to  them  and 
said  they  could  have  the  date  if  they  so  desired.  A  short  time 
afterward,  at  the  request  of  the  bureau,  who  had  booked  him 
for  an  appearance  at  Library  Hall,  Pittsburgh,  on  the  date 
first  given,  we  agreed  to  change  to  November.  On  the  after 
noon  of  the  date  in  October  when  he  was  to  appear  in  Pitts 
burgh,  who  should  come  breezing  cheerily  into  my  office  but 
Burdette,  at  an  hour  when  it  was  too  late  to  catch  a  train  for 
the  Smoky  City.  As  soon  as  I  espied  him,  I  said :  "  What  are 
you  doing  here?  You  are  advertised  to  lecture  in  Pittsburgh 
tonight."  "Well,  I  was  never  notified  by  the  bureau  after 
they  changed  the  Franklin  date,"  he  replied,  "and  so,  thinking 
I  had  a  night  off,  stopped  off  for  a  visit  with  you  on  my  way 
to  Erie,  where  I  am  to  lecture  tomorrow  night."  When  he 
came  back  the  next  month,  and,  by  the  way,  he  was  greeted 
with  a  crowded  house,  he  told  me  he  watched  the  Pittsburgh 
papers  the  next  morning  after  the  night  he  was  to  have  been 
there  and  received  some  of  the  best  notices  he  had  experienced 
in  his  entire  career  on  the  lecture  platform.  The  reporters  had 
taken  it  for  granted  that  he  filled  the  date  and  wrote  their 
notices  without  going  near  Library  Hall. 

William  Allen  White,  the  editor  of  the  Emporia 
Gazette,  was  one  of  the  friends  of  his  earlier  lecture  days, 

235 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  after  Burdette's  appearance  at  Emporia,  White's 
comment  is  indicative  of  the  Burdette  spirit  and  of 
White's  appreciation: 

Emporia  is  a  better  town  today  because  Robert  J.  Burdette 
was  here  last  night  with  his  "merry  heart".  A  thousand 
people  came  to  Albert  Taylor  Hall  to  hear  him,  and  a  thousand 
burdens  are  lighter  today  and  ten  thousand  cares  have  fled. 
Men  with  money  bags  have  come  to  town  and  left  sorrow  and 
wrinkles  in  their  trail.  Men  with  knotty  problems  to  solve 
have  visited  Emporia  and  headaches  and  weariness  have  fol 
lowed  them.  Men  with  green-eyed  envious  visions  of  other 
people's  iniquity  have  come  and  heartaches  and  ranklings 
have  seared  their  scars  upon  those  who  listened.  But  the  Man 
with  the  Merry  Heart  came  and  today  God's  smile  of  benedic 
tion  is  on  the  dull  old  town.  The  lecture  was  all  very  funny, 
and  all  very  true,  and  all  very  sweet — gentle  and  kind  as  a 
May  breeze  in  an  orchard  with  the  apple  trees  in  bloom.  The 
Little  Man  with  the  Merry  Heart  helped  old  Emporia  out  of 
its  crusty  rut — so  God  bless  him  for  his  coming. 

He  was  fond  of  his  pen  and  pencil,  not  alone  for  his 
written  work,  but  because  of  his  gift  at  illumining  his 
letters,  and,  in  fact,  all  of  his  manuscripts  and  docu 
ments,  with  sketches  and  fancily  colored  and  orna 
mental  initials.  His  captions  too  had  always  his  spirit 
of  humor,  for  instance,  the  copy  of  a  winter  lecture 
route  which  he  made  to  send  to  a  member  of  his  family 
is  headed  " Robin  Tracks  in  the  Snow".  The  back  of 
an  old  file  case  in  which  he  kept  copies  of  addresses  and 
sermons  he  labelled  with  elaborate  care  "Cold  Tongue". 
He  had  a  keen  appreciation  always  of  the  value  of  good 
service,  and  in  replying  to  a  request  for  a  lecture  at  a 
reduced  fee,  he  wrote: 

DEAR  MAN — Yours  of  June  30th,  asking  for  an  engage 
ment  at  "reduced  rates"  is  at  hand.  Replying,  I  have  to  say 
that  at  a  time  when 

236 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

Hod    Carriers,    Drain   Pipe   Layers,   Plasterers,    Carpenters, 

Graders,  Ice  Men,  Garbage  Collectors,  Milk  Men,  City 

Scavengers,  Blacksmiths,  Plumbers,  Tramps,  Cooks, 

Waiters,  Bell  Boys,  Chambermaids,  Porters, 

Bootblacks,  Sandwich  Men,  Trolley  Men, 

"Hello"  Girls,  Painters,  Hackmen, 

Gamblers,  Dog  Catchers,  and 

Everybody  else 

unite  in  demanding  an  increase  of  wages  about  every  fifteen 
minutes — and  get  it,  and  ask  for  more — I  would  be  ashamed 
to  step  out  on  the  platform  if  I  belittled  and  cheapened  my 
own  "trade",  when  every  other  working  man  in  America  is 
exalting  his. 

For  the  past  twenty-five  years  my  fee  has  been  high,  but 
it  has  always  been  the  same.  When  times  were  so  good  that 
we  couldn't  stand  it,  it  didn't  make  me  worth  a  cent  more. 
When  times  were  so  hard  that  men  forgot  what  meat  tasted 
like,  it  didn't  deteriorate  me  a  cent.  Other  spellbinders  soared 
out  of  sight  in  the  flush  times — and  went  down  out  of  sight  in 
the  years  of  the  lean  kine.  I  have  always  said,  "  My  lecture  is 
worth  just  so  much,  rain  or  shine."  I  have  always  been  a 
"stand  patter". 

And  now  I  am  too  old  to  change.  Everybody  knows  what 
my  price  is.  And  just  one  closing  word,  my  boy — I  have  been 
on  the  platform  nearly  twenty-eight  years,  and  I  have  seen 
more  lecture  associations  flattened  out,  smashed,  "busted" — 
by  $25  men,  than  I  ever  knew  to  be  even  "embarrassed"  by 
one-hundred-dollar  men.  Put  that  in  your  meerschaum  and 
inhale  gently. 

Never  was  he  too  busy  to  remember  his  old  friends 
of  the  bureau,  and  upon  his  return  from  a  European 
trip,  he  wrote  the  Lyceum  Bureau  at  Boston  in  these 
terms: 

DEAR  MAN:  Where  have  I  been  since  last  June  that  I 
didn't  make  any  speeches  last  winter?  Oh,  well,  I  had  been 
traveling  up  and  down  the  land  of  America  under  your  own 
piloting  for  twenty-five  years  on  "one-night  stands"  and  I 
felt  that  I  needed  the  change  which  travel  alone  could  give  to 

237 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

such  a  sedentary  life.  So  I  set  my  sails  in  order,  and  smote 
the  sounding  billows  and  came  abroad.  I  went  to  London  to 
visit  the  Queen  and  now  I  am  going  back  again  to  call  on  the 
King;  went  up  and  down  that  land  from  castle  to  cathedral 
and  then  hied  me  to  Scotland  to  pick  up  a  collection  of  "burrs" 
to  mix  with  my  "Hs";  learned  Edinboro'  by  heart,  which  is 
the  only  way  to  learn  Scotland,  visited  the  Highlands  and  all 
the  Loch  country;  tramped  and  stage-coached  and  boated; 
came  back  to  England  and  loitered  in  the  Lake  country  of 
"Wordsworthshire";  went  to  Paris  to  get  rid  of  people  who 
wanted  to  know  if  "I  had  been  to  the  Exposition". 

Went  to  Germany  and  sailed  up  the  Rhine  as  far  as  May- 
ence;  got  off  the  boat  and  went  to  Munich;  took  in  Oberam- 
mergau  and  the  " Passion  Play";  went  to  Zurich  and  thence 
to  Lucerne;  climbed  mountains  till  my  shoes  wore  out;  went 
to  Geneva  and  studied  Calvinism;  crossed  the  mountains  and 
went  to  the  Lake  of  Como  to  see  if  it  was  all  true;  went  to 
Milan  to  count  the  statues  on  the  Cathedral;  got  to  Venice 
and  found  it  hard  work  to  tear  myself  away  from  the  loveliest 
"loafing  place"  on  earth — and  it's  on  the  water;  then  went 
to  Florence  and  lost  myself  in  a  thousand  miles  of  picture 
galleries;  advertised  for  myself,  got  out  and  went  to  Rome  to 
see  the  Pope  and  the  new  King  and  Queen;  then  went  to  Naples; 
visited  Pompeii,  but  didn't  locate  there;  dead  town;  climbed 
Vesuvius  and  looked  into  the  crater;  nothing  in  it;  drove 
along  the  coast  of  Italy  as  far  as  Paestum;  got  on  ship  again 
and  came  to  Cairo;  steam-boated  up  the  Nile  as  far  as  the  first 
cataract;  went  into  more  tombs  than  I  supposed  there  were 
in  the  world;  came  back  down  the  river  a  mile  at  a  time;  have 
been  enjoying  Cairo  and  its  bewildering  streets  and  fascinating 
bazars. 

Next  week  we  sail  for  Jaffa,  and  thence  go  to  Jerusalem; 
spend  about  a  month  in  Palestine,  then  go  to  Damascus;  visit 
Baalbec,  and  get  back  to  Egypt  again;  then  sail  for  Athens; 
spend  the  rest  of  March  in  Greece;  then  a  little  time  in  Turkey; 
then  to  Austria  and  Germany;  then  another  little  stay  in  Paris; 
thence  to  England  for  part  of  June,  and  home  by  the  first  of 
July,  ready  to  lecture  the  rest  of  my  life,  for  I  feel  that  I  will 
need  a  little  travel  for  a  change. 

238 


CASUAL  INCIDENTS 

His  newspaper  feature  articles,  like  many  of  his 
personal  letters,  swing  rapidly  from  grave  to  gay  and 
from  gay  to  grave,  and  there  are  many  choice  bits  of 
pathos  and  philosophy  to  be  found  in  the  columns  of 
work  for  daily  newspapers.  A  humorous  letter  for  the 
Brooklyn  Eagle  closed  with  these  words: 

Shall  I  chant  something  merry  for  you  as  I  go?  It's  my 
nature,  you  know. 

And  he  followed  this  invitation  to  himself  with  a 
poem  "Under  the  Purple  and  Motley",  which  gives  a 
clearer  view  into  the  serious  under-current  of  his 
nature: 

Well  might  the  King  wear  sackcloth;  his  were  a  nation's  woes, 
And  every  sob  from  a  million  lips  was  one  of  his  own  heart 

throes; 
The  tears  of  his  people  burned  his  cheeks,  their  hunger  gnawed 

his  breast, 
The  pain  that  ached  in  their  hollow  eyes  drove  peace  from  his 

sleepless  rest. 

But  the  Jester — who  laughed  in  the  palace;  who  mocked  at  the 

shriveled  lips 
Of  gaunt-eyed  Famine  and  turned  aside  her  moan  with  his 

nimble  quips, 
Who  rippled  a  stave  of  a  reveller's  song,  when  the  woman,  with 

bitter  cry, 
Shrieked,  "Help,  oh  King,  for  God  will  not!"  as  the  helpless 

King  passed  by; 

The  Jester — who  grinned  at  the  scanty  fare  they  spread  at  the 

royal  board, 
And  tittered  a  grace,  more  jest  than  prayer  and  more  to  the 

guests  than  the  Lord; 
Who  wrinkled  his  face  with  a  wry  grimace,  while  the  people 

looked  aghast 
At  the  sackcloth  under  the  robes  of  their  King,  as  he  went 

sadly  past. 

239 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

The  Jester — whose  merry  gibes  were  heard  in  all  that  doleful 

while — 
Should  he  wear  sackcloth  like  the  King — why,  Famine's  self 

would  smile; 
He — light  and  empty  of  heart  and  thought  as  the  jingling  bells 

he  wore — 
He  would  laugh  at  the  sackcloth  and  jest  at  the  ache  of  the 

heart  it  covered  o'er. 

The  Jester — Death  laughed  in  his  face  one  day  and  the  smile 

on  his  lips  was  chilled; 
So  strange  it  seemed  for  him  to  die,  that  all  the  Court  was 

filled 
With  ripples  of  laughter,  hushed  and  low,  just  tinged  with  pity 

and  shame, 
But  the  smiles  would  come,  when  they  coupled  Death  with  the 

frolicsome  Jester's  name. 

So  with  pitying  smiles  and  hands  they  dressed  the  dead  for  the 

Court  of  Death, 
They  stripped  off  his  motley — the  grotesque  rags — and  then, 

with  startled  breath — 
They  looked  in  amaze,  for  chafing  his  breast  with  its  irritant 

rankle  and  sting, 
Under  his  motley  the  Jester  wore  the  sackcloth — like  a  King. 


240 


CHAPTER  X 

CALIFORNIA  AND  PERMANENT  CHURCH  WORK 

DURING  a  season  of  lecture  engagements,  Mr. 
Burdette  came  to  Eau  Claire,  Wis.,  early  in 
1879,  to  lecture  in  a  course  managed  by  my 
husband,  Professor  N.   M.    Wheeler,  then 
principal  of  Eau  Claire  Seminary.   In  1882  he  lectured 
in  Appleton,  Wis.,  in  a  lecture  course  again  managed 
by  Professor  Wheeler.     A  friendship  was  thus  formed 
between  Professor  Wheeler  and  myself  and  Mr.  Bur 
dette,  that  continued  through  the  years. 

Soon  after  Mrs.  Burdette's  death  in  1884,  Mr.  Bur 
dette  again  came  to  fulfill  a  lecture  engagement  at  the 
Winona  Lake  Assembly,  Madison,  Wis.,  bringing  with 
him  his  little  boy,  Robin,  who  was  then  in  white  kilts. 
They  were  our  guests  and  our  little  son,  Roy  Bradley 
Wheeler,  a  baby  in  arms,  first  saw  the  man  who  was  in 
later  years  to  be  the  "Daddy"  of  his  manhood  years. 
In  1885,  Professor  Wheeler  and  I  came  to  California, 
he  in  search  of  health,  which  proved  to  be  permanently 
impaired,  and  he  passed  away,  December  5, 1886.  The 
friendship  which  had  continued  between  Mr.  Burdette 
and  myself  was  evidenced  by  correspondence  and  inter 
change  of  visits,  he  coming  to  the  coast  in  1887,  again 
in  1895  and  in  1898.  During  this  last  visit,  while  a 
guest  in  my  home  he  was  invited  to  preach  a  number 
of  times  in  Southern  California,  so  that  it  was  a  most 
natural  thing,  following  a  public  announcement  early 
in  1899,  that  he  was  coming  to  Pasadena  to  live,  as  I 
was  to  become  Mrs.  Burdette,  that  the  First  Presby 
terian  Church  of  Pasadena  should  extend  to  him  an 

16  241 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

invitation  to  supply  its  pulpit  which  had  been  vacant 
for  some  time.  The  announcement  of  his  acceptance  of 
the  Presbyterian  pulpit  was  made  February  13th.  This 
necessitated  his  cutting  his  lecture  course  for  the  winter 
somewhat  short,  that  he  might  come  to  Pasadena  the 
last  of  March,  which  he  did,  arriving  as  the  temporary 
guest  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Norman  Bridge.  Upon  my 
invitation,  fourteen  friends  assembled  for  breakfast 
one  morning,  and  were  somewhat  surprised  to  find  they 
were  also  to  witness  the  marriage  ceremony,  which  was 
conducted  by  Rev.  A.  Moss  Merwin,  a  man  dearly 
beloved  by  us  all. 

Mr.  Burdette's  first  sermon  was  preached  Easter 
morning,  April,  1899,  to  a  congregation  which  over 
crowded  the  capacity  of  the  church,  and  he  often  said 
that  the  floral  decorations  and  the  music,  prepared  with 
regard  for  the  day  and  a  welcome  to  him,  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  things  his  memory  could  contain.  The 
cordiality  with  which  the  Presbyterian  people  accepted 
this  man  of  the  Baptist  faith,  and  the  success  with 
which  he  drew  all  men  unto  him  and  strengthened  the 
church  work  from  the  Sabbath  School  through  all  the 
various  departments,  was  the  foreshadowing  of  his 
ability  to  build  up  the  great  church  of  his  own  faith 
which  was  finally  to  be  the  scene  of  the  crowning  activ 
ities  of  his  life. 

The  fourteen  months  of  service  to  this  church  were 
interrupted  by  two  months  of  lecture  engagements, 
which  were  of  long  standing  and  which  he  felt  must  be 
fulfilled,  but  in  spite  of  this  his  service  to  this  church 
was  so  successful  that  they  invited  him  to  become  the 
permanent  pastor,  though  he  was  not  a  Presbyterian, 
but  a  Baptist.  A  deep  feeling  on  the  part  of  both 
Mr.  Burdette  and  myself  that  while  one  may  be  justi- 

242 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

fied  in  evoluting  from  one  faith  to  another,  after  fifty 
years  of  established  connection  with  a  given  church,  a 
sudden  transition  was  impossible,  and  the  keener  sense 
of  the  justice  to  the  pastors  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
who  were  rightly  entitled  to  so  alluring  a  pastorate, 
determined  Mr.  Burdette  that  he  could  not  for  one 
moment  accede  to  their  request.  In  declining  the  call 
and  while  expressing  in  warmest  terms  his  appreciation 
of  the  Christian  fellowship  which  he  had  enjoyed,  he 
said: 

I  am  a  Baptist;  this  is  a  Presbyterian  church.  If  after  forty 
years  of  service  in  one  denomination  I  could  say  to  you  that 
in  three  months  I  had  changed  my  convictions  on  certain  points 
of  denominational  differences,  you  would  doubt  the  perfect 
sincerity  of  that  sudden  conversion  in  a  man  of  my  years.  And 
I  ought  to  doubt  it  myself.  So  long  as  I  live  you  and  I  will  be 
loyal  friends  and  cordial  yoke-fellows. 

Still  desirous  of  having  his  presence  as  their  pastor, 
they  invited  him  to  become  its  permanent  supply,  and 
he  returned  a  like  answer,  but  consented  to  remain  with 
the  church  as  its  pastor  until  a  proposed  European  trip. 

Just  before  leaving  Pasadena  he  received  from  the 
Session  a  letter  which  was  to  him  the  richest  reward 
for  any  service  he  may  have  rendered  this  church  of  my 
persuasion: 

PASADENA,  CAL.,  May  25, 1900. 
To  the  Reverend  Robert  J.  Burdette. 
DEAR  BROTHER: 

The  session  of  the  church  being  deeply  impressed  with  the 
excellent  results  of  your  labors  while  acting  as  our  pastor  during 
the  year  about  to  close,  desire  on  this  occasion  to  express  our 
gratitude  and  thankfulness  for  your  uniform  faithfulness  and 
tireless  zeal  in  the  uplifting  of  our  church  and  congregation, 
and  for  the  ennobling  Christian  influences  your  teaching  has 
instilled  into  our  individual  lives. 

243 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Coming  to  us  as  you  did  at  a  time  when  we  were  without 
a  pastor,  you  took  up  the  work,  and  have  never  faltered  in 
inciting  us  onward  in  the  acquirement  of  all  those  high  Christian 
graces  which  make  up  the  life  of  a  follower  of  Christ. 

At  our  mid-week  meetings  you  have  ever  taught  us  to  seek 
to  show  ourselves  as  high  and  worthy  examples  of  the  true 
followers  of  Christ,  and  in  the  pulpit  your  exposition  of  the 
scriptures  has  quickened  our  sense  of  Christian  duty  and  Chris 
tian  living,  and  broadened  and  deepened  our  love  for  the  great 
truth  of  the  common  brotherhood  of  mankind;  and  our  realiza 
tion  of  God's  love  for  his  children  has  often  made  our  hearts  to 
burn  within  us  as  you  have  told  us  of  the  great  price  he  has 
given  to  redeem  us. 

Under  your  pastorate  the  attendance  on  our  midweek  meet 
ings  has  greatly  increased,  and  on  the  Sabbath  the  auditorium 
is  filled  by  an  interested  and  appreciative  audience.  A  large 
number,  both  by  letter  and  by  profession  have  been  added  to 
our  membership ;  our  church  edifice  repaired  and  strengthened ; 
our  church  debt  greatly  decreased ;  our  finances  are  in  a  highly 
satisfactory  condition;  harmony  prevails  through  our  borders; 
our  spiritual  life  is  revived;  and  a  greater  desire  to  do  good 
service  for  the  Master  possesses  our  hearts. 

And  now  as  we  sorrow  for  your  going  from  among  us,  we 
again  earnestly  and  heartily  thank  you  for  your  efficient  service 
in  the  Master's  cause.  Our  prayer  is  that  our  Heavenly  Father 
may  bountifully  bestow  on  you  and  yours  His  richest 
benedictions. 
(Signed)  ROBERT  STRONG,  GEO.  DEACON 

Moderator  pro  tern. 

W.  A.  EDWARDS,  Clerk         W.  S.  WINDHAM 
C.  A.  MCCORMICK  N.  M.  LUTZ 

H.  A.  HOLME  H.  N.  BALDWIN 

This  is  given  to  show  how  generous  they  were 
toward  him  in  their  acceptance  of  his  leadings,  and 
with  what  truly  Christian  doctrine  he  must  have  given 
forth  his  message  to  them,  because  it  did  not  interfere 
in  any  way  with  church  doctrine,  policy  or  creed,  nor 
did  he  step  aside  from  his  own  in  any  of  the  essential 
244 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE,  AS  PREACHER  AND  PASTOR 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT  CHURCH  WORK 

principles  of  faith.  As  he  often  smilingly  remarked — 
he  could  not  sprinkle  their  babies,  but  he  could  at  least 
hold  the  chalice  for  some  one  else  to  perform  this  church 
act. 

To  quote  from  his  farewell  sermon  a  paragraph 
inserted  into  the  heart  of  it,  as  if  this  message  to  the 
young  people  was  his  deepest  concern: 

Oh,  mother,  the  day  will  come  when  your  boy  will  tenderly 
loose  your  clinging  hands  from  around  his  neck,  kiss  you 
good-by  with  your  soul  on  his  lips,  and  turn  away  to  go  out 
into  the  great  wide  world  with  your,  his  mother's,  "God  Bless 
You"  for  his  talisman.  What  have  you  done  for  him?  What 
did  you  teach  him  when  he  was  a  child?  What  are  you  teaching 
your  little  ones  now,  mother?  By  your  lips,  by  your  life,  the 
gospel  of  your  life,  by  your  love  for  the  Word,  and  the  church 
of  God,  and  your  reverence  for  the  Sabbath — what  are  you 
teaching  the  little  ones?  For  I  tell  you  that  what  you  teach 
them  now  will  come  back  to  them  long  years  after  the  good-by 
has  been  said,  as  one  day  it  must  be.  Oh,  in  the  name  of  Christ 
give  the  boy  and  the  girl  something  to  take  away  from  the  home, 
some  sacred  association,  some  holy  teaching,  some  pure  example 
of  faith  and  righteousness  that  all  the  combined  temptations 
and  powers  of  the  world,  and  sin,  and  death  and  hell  can  never 
wrest  from  them — something  that  will  hold  them  true  to  you 
and  to  God!  Then  you  can  smile  through  the  tears  of  the 
good-by. 

The  more  intimate  message  indicates  the  humility 
of  spirit  which  was  always  his,  coupled  with  an  unusual 
courage  and  daring  when  the  truth  was  to  be 
proclaimed: 

God  has  made  sweet,  indeed,  to  us  the  fellowship,  the  com 
radeship,  the  dear  companionship,  of  this  past  year.  Every 
day  do  I  thank  God  for  the  friendships  that  have  here  been 
knitted  into  my  life — friendships  so  loyal  and  so  dear  that  it 
seems  to  me  sometimes  they  must  have  begun  many  years  ago. 
I  thank  you  with  an  overflowing  heart  for  the  multiplied  kind- 

245 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

nesses  you  have  shown  me;  for  the  patience  with  my  blunders, 
for  the  love  that  has  blotted  out  my  mistakes;  for  the  partiality 
of  friendship  that  has  chosen  to  ignore  my  limitations  and  over 
look  very  apparent  shortcomings;  for  the  kindness  that  has  so 
sweetly  borne  with  awkward  ways. 

Whatsoever  things  there  have  been  in  my  ministry  that 
"have  been  just  or  lovely,  or  of  good  report,  of  any  virtue,  or 
of  any  praise",  have  been  borne  out  of  your  own  loving  hearts 
that  have  chosen  to  "think  on  these  things".  Believe  me,  my 
heart  overflows  with  all  these  memories  of  your  goodness  and 
kindness,  and  through  all  my  life  I  will  carry  grateful  and  loving 
thoughts  of  you.  Let  me,  as  I  bid  you  farewell,  again  quote 
from  the  great  apostle,  who  says  for  us  so  grandly  the  things  we 
would  love  to  say: 

"Therefore,  my  brethren,  dearly  beloved  and  longed  for, 
my  joy  and  my  crown,  so  stand  fast  in  the  Lord,  my  dearly 
beloved.  And  be  ye  kind  to  one  another,  tender-hearted,  for 
giving  one  another,  even  as  God  for  Christ's  sake  hath  forgiven 
you.  Be  ye  therefore  followers  of  God,  as  dear  children,  and 
walk  in  love,  even  as  Christ  also  hath  loved  us."  And  "  I  will 
return  again  unto  you,  if  God  wills."  For  myself  and  for  her 
who,  under  God's  providence,  led  us  into  the  joy  of  this  great 
friendship,  and  for  the  boy,  I  bid  you  farewell.  In  the  sweet 
benediction  of  our  young  people:  "The  Lord  watch  between 
thee  and  me,  when  we  are  absent  one  from  another." 

In  June,  1900,  the  older  son,  Robert  J.  Burdette,  Jr., 
graduated  from  Haverford,  and  the  younger  son 
passed  his  entrance  examinations  for  Harvard  at  seven 
teen,  with  sufficient  honors  that  a  year  of  travel  might 
not  be  altogether  a  loss,  so  we  four  went  abroad  for 
the  joy  of  Mr.  Burdette's  first  trip  in  foreign  lands,  for 
a  post-graduate  course  for  the  older  son,  and  a  better 
preparation  for  college  life  for  the  younger  son,  and  my 
joy  in  all  three  and  a  visit  to  many  old  scenes  of  travel. 

It  was  on  this,  his  first  ocean  going  trip,  that  he 
wrote  a  letter  to  his  " flock"  and  dated  it  "Some  dis 
tance  out  in  the  damp"  and  then  assured  them  that — 
246 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

the  scenery  along  this  route,  although  somewhat  monotonous, 
is  daily  irrigated,  but  it  seems  too  early  for  growing  crops. 
Nothing  has  come  up  yet  except  on  shipboard,  and  that  has 
gone  overboard.  The  route  is  not  nearly  so  populous  as  the 
Santa  Fe  trail  over  the  desert.  We  have  just  two  kinds  of 
days — the  days  we  see  a  ship  and  the  days  we  don't. 

During  the  year  we  spent  our  time  in  England;  in 
Scotland;  in  France  during  the  Paris  Exposition;  in 
Switzerland  for  some  months  in  a  chalet  at  Lucerne; 
in  Italy  and  Southern  Italy  for  the  holiday  time;  in 
Egypt  up  the  Nile;  to  Palestine  for  a  horseback  tour; 
through  the  Mediterranean  to  Greece;  over  to  Vienna; 
back  to  Paris;  to  London;  to  New  York;  the  finest 
investment  that  was  ever  made  in  a  year's  time  for  the 
preparation  of  the  life  work  of  each  of  the  men.  During 
that  time  Mr.  Burdette  contributed  weekly  letters 
home,  which  were  printed  throughout  the  United 
States  and  which  contained  some  of  the  most  interest 
ing  bits  of  travel  description  that  his  fertile  imagina 
tion  and  clever  pen  could  portray.  These  he  often 
began  with  some  little  poem  which  struck  the  key-note 
of  the  letter,  and  for  one  of  these  he  wrote  the  poem 
that  has  been  more  largely  republished  than  any  other 
except  the  poem  "Alone ": 

"KEEP  SWEET  AND   KEEP  MOVIN'" 

Homely  phrase  of  our  southland  bright — 

Keep  steady  step  to  the  flam  of  the  drum; 
Touch  to  the  left — eyes  to  the  right — 

Sing  with  the  soul  tho'  the  lips  be  dumb. 
Hard  to  be  good  when  the  wind's  in  the  east; 

Hard  to  be  gay  when  the  heart  is  down, 
When  "they  that  trouble  you  are  increased", 
When  you  look  for  a  smile  and  see  a  frown. 

But 
"  Keep  sweet  and  keep  movin'." 

247 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Sorrow  will  shade  the  blue  sky  gray — 

Gray  is  the  color  our  brothers  wore; 

Azure  will  gleam  in  the  skies  once  more. 
Colors  of  Patience  and  Hope  are  they — 
Sunshine  will  scatter  the  clouds  away; 

Always  at  even  in  one  they  blend; 
Tinting  the  heavens  by  night  and  day, 

Over  our  hearts  to  the  journey's  end 

Just 
"  Keep  sweet  and  keep  movin'." 

Hard  to  be  sweet  when  the  throng  is  dense, 

When  elbows  jostle  and  shoulders  crowd; 
Easy  to  give  and  to  take  offense 

When  the  touch  is  rough  and  the  voice  is  loud; 
"Keep  to  the  right"  in  the  city's  throng; 

"Divide  the  road"  on  the  broad  highway; 
There's  one  way  right  when  every  thing's  wrong; 

"  Easy  and  fair  goes  far  in  a  day." 

Just 
"  Keep  sweet  and  keep  movin'." 

The  quick  taunt  answers  the  hasty  word — 

The  lifetime  chance  for  a  "help"  is  missed; 
The  muddiest  pool  is  a  fountain  stirred. 

A  kind  hand  clenched  makes  an  ugly  fist. 
When  the  nerves  are  tense  and  the  mind  is  vexed, 

The  spark  lies  close  to  the  magazine; 
Whisper  a  hope  to  the  soul  perplexed 

Banish  the  fear  with  a  smile  serene — 

Just 
"  Keep  sweet  and  keep  movin'." 

Mr.  Burdette's  constant  joy  at  new  and  unusual 
scenes  was  unbounded.  His  well-stored  memory  of 
historic  events  greatly  enriched  each  scene  visited,  and 
his  marvelous  and  accurate  familiarity  with  the  Bible 
made  the  trip  through  Palestine  a  revelation  and  a 
source  of  information  and  inspiration  most  unusual. 
248 


THE  BURDETTE   PARTY   IN  THE   HOLY  LAND 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

Each  night  as  we  gathered  in  the  tent,  he  simply  opened 
the  Bible  and  read  to  us  as  if  it  were  a  guide  book,  the 
events  that  had  taken  place  in  the  regions  which  we 
had  traversed  that  day.  He  himself  so  often  gave 
unconscious  evidence  in  the  after  years  of  his  sermons 
of  what  he  absorbed  and  gave  out  in  most  vivifying 
statements  and  presentation  of  gospel  truth,  based  upon 
historic  setting,  that  I  aways  felt  this  trip  was  a  provi 
dential  preparation  for  the  work  he  was  to  assume  in 
the  later  years,  so  often  considered  radically  different 
from  his  previous  life  work. 

His  letters  to  personal  friends  were  to  them  a  "joy 
forever "  and  are  preserved  until  this  day.  A  letter  to 
his  father  from  Lucerne,  Switzerland,  September  19, 
1900,  described  Oberammergau: 

And  then  the  day  following,  we  went  on  to  Oberammergau 
and  witnessed  its  famous  "Passion  Play",  discussed  and 
esteemed  in  as  many  ways  as  there  are  people  who  have  wit 
nessed  it.  Whatever  you  may  think  of  its  effect  and  teaching, 
you  are  completely  under  the  power  of  it  while  you  look  and 
listen. 

In  the  year  1633  a  fearful  pestilence  broke  out  in  the  villages 
of  these  mountains  of  Bavaria.  It  came  within  nine  miles  of 
Oberammergau,  in  the  village  of  Kohlgrub,  where  but  two 
married  people  were  left  alive,  and  in  spite  of  all  measures 
began  to  creep  into  the  village  of  Oberammergau. 

Within  33  days,  84  people  died.  Then  the  helpless  villagers 
vowed  that  if  God  would  take  away  the  pestilence,  they  would 
perform  the  Passion  Tragedy  in  thanksgiving  every  ten  years. 
"And  the  Lord  repented  him  of  the  evil,  and  said  to  the  angel 
that  destroyed  the  people,  It  is  enough;  stay  now  thine  hand. 
And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  was  by  the  threshing  place  of  Arauna, 
the  Jebusite." 

And  so  at  Oberammergau,  although  a  number  of  persons 
were  suffering  with  the  plague  when  the  vow  was  made,  not 
one  died  after  that.  The  play  was  first  performed  in  1634, 
and  with  some  interruptions  has  been  performed  every  ten 

249 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

years  ever  since.  It  used  to  be  presented  in  all  simplicity  out 
of  doors,  in  the  churchyard,  but  of  late  years  the  increasing 
attendance  of  tourists  has  necessitated  other  arrangements. 
The  "simple-minded  villagers"  have  builded  an  auditorium 
seating  4000  persons;  at  one  end  it  is  entirely  open;  the  stage 
is  out  of  doors  and  there  is  a  little  space  between  the  stage  and 
the  auditorium,  yet  so  perfect  are  the  acoustics  of  this  oddly 
constructed  house  that  every  word  from  the  stage  is  heard 
clearly  throughout  the  edifice.  That  is  one  wonder. 

Another  is,  that  these  peasants,  villagers,  wood  carvers  and 
servants,  move  on  the  stage  with  grace,  majesty,  dignity,  such 
as  you  rarely  see  in  the  pulpit  or  on  the  stage;  there  is  nothing 
affected  or  "stagey"  about  one  of  them.  For  the  time,  each 
one  seems  to  be  the  character  he  portrays.  Another  thing: 
The  play,  which  is  a  dramatic  presentation  of  the  closing- 
week  of  the  Saviour's  life  before  the  crucifixion,  following  the 
Gospel  story,  is  8  hours  on  the  stage,  there  being  an  interval 
of  an  hour  and  a  quarter  at  noon — two  acts  of  4  hours  each. 
All  that  time  the  audience  is  held  with  almost  breathless  inter 
est;  there  is  no  talking;  no  whispering;  few  people  go  out; 
it  is  wonderful. 

Now  try  to  imagine  any  theatrical  manager  presenting  an 
attraction  that  would  hold  any  audience  8  hours.  It  couldn't 
be  done.  And  the  play  has  not  a  ripple  of  mirth,  not  one  ray 
of  humor.  It  is  earnest  as  life,  solemn  as  death  all  the  way 
through.  The  scenes  are  lived  over  before  you.  The  "Last 
Supper"  is  the  tenderest  thing  that  I  ever  saw.  Robbie  sobbed 
like  a  child  over  it,  and  the  man  had  to  be  callous-hearted  who 
could  sit  through  that  scene  dry-eyed.  The  play  lasted  all 
Sunday  from  8  A.  M.  to  5.30  P.  M.,  and  then  the  rush  for  the 
cafes,  in  the  little  shops  and  on  the  sidewalks  everywhere,  was 
tremendous,  and  the  consumption  of  wine  and  beer  went  on 
like  a  torrent  till  nine  o'clock  at  night;  maybe  later;  I  went  to 
sleep  then. 

This  also  is  a  comment  on  the  moral  effect  of  the  play. 
However,  that  didn't  mean  what  it  would  in  America.  These 
people  drink  wine  and  beer  as  we  drink  water.  And  right 
here — you  will  hear  people  tell  you  they  had  to  drink  wine  and 
beer  in  Europe  because  they  could  get  no  water.  I  haven't 
seen  a  table  in  hotel,  restaurant,  or  "pension"  (you  call  that 
250 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

pon-se-on,  with  the  accent  on  the  "pon",  it  means  "boarding- 
house")  where  the  drinking  water  was  not  served  as  it  is  in 
America.  And  the  water  is  good,  too;  better  than  you  get  in 
Philadelphia;  doesn't  have  to  be  boiled  any  more  than  it  does 
in  Chicago.  That  excuse  is  a  lie  in  every  letter;  four  drink 
nothing  but  water,  and  never  have  the  slightest  trouble  getting 
it.  Americans  who  drink  wine  and  beer  in  Europe  do  so  because 
they  want  to,  not  because  they  have  to. 

To  Erasmus  Wilson  he  wrote  from  Rome,  Decem 
ber,  17,  1900: 

DEAR  MAN, 

By  the  time  this  reaches  you,  the  19th  and  20th  centuries 
will  have  settled  their  dispute,  so  here's  a  Happy  New  Year 
and  A  Happy  New  Century  to  you — the  only  man  I  know 
who  is  big  enough  to  require  a  whole  century  for  a  New  Year 
greeting.  And  it  won't  be  a  mis-fit,  either.  If  you  had  all 
of  the  New  Century  allotted  to  you  that  you  deserve,  there 
would  be  200  years  in  it,  and  every  day  will  be  Christmas. 

Well,  you'll  get  all  that — Christmasses  and  all,  "one  of 
these  days".  What  a  long  day  it  will  be — with  the  sun  always 
hanging  about  half-past  five — waiting  for  the  twilight  that 
comes  after  "office  hours" — the  time  when  "school  is  out" 
and  the  children  go  trooping  home. 

We  gray-haired  old  boys,  going  slowly  up  the  long  slope 
of  the  hill  over  which  the  sun  is  resting,  and  behind  which  is 
home — and  the  twilight — and  the  stars.  Won't  you  be  glad 
when  "School  is  out",  dear  old  Boy?  I  will,  and  I  won't. 
For  I've  got  to  carry  my  books  home.  They're  badly  "dog's 
eared",  but  I  won't  mind  that;  that  comes  of  study.  And 
they're  torn  pretty  badly,  but  I  won't  mind  that;  I  got  that 
done  fighting.  But  there's  ink  marks  and  stains  on  so  many 
pages.  That  I'm  sorry  for — there's  no  excuse  for  that.  Good 
bye!  Just  got  to  thinkin'  of  you,  and  sat  down  to  send  you  a 
hail  and  I've  turned  it  into  a  wail.  A  Long  Happy  New  Year. 

Yours  as  ever, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

To  his  father  he  wrote  from  Venice,  concerning  the 
fall  elections: 

251 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

November  6th,  7  P.  M.  Well,  you  haven't  got  through  the 
battle  yet,  it  is  about  11  A.  M.  in  Chicago — the  difference  in 
time  is  eight  hours,  but  we  are  safe  in  Venice.  This  morning 
I  prepared  four  ballots  for  McKinley  and  Roosevelt,  and  we 
all  four,  including  the  minor  and  the  woman,  marched  solemnly 
across  the  piazzeta,  which  is  a  part  of  St.  Mark's  Square,  and 
gravely  deposited  our  ballots  in  the  Royal  Italian  letter  box 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Doges'  Palace  and  the  column  of  St. 
Mark's.  This  evening  we  know  that  McKinley's  majority  in 
Venice  is  four  over  all,  and  Bryan  hasn't  got  a  vote  in  this 
silver  stronghold.  And  it  is  silver,  sure  enough.  The  rate  of 
exchange  on  gold  is  about  sixteen  per  cent. 

I  am  incubating  a  new  lecture.  I  call  it  "Rainbow 
Chasers".  I'm  one.  The  "aig"  is  fair  to  look  upon,  but 
you  never  can  tell  what  may  happen  to  a  negg.  Duck,  maybe, 
when  you  want  a  fighting  cock,  or  a  tiny  little  piccolo  of  a 
bantam,  when  you  prayed  for  a  great  basso-profundo  of  a 
Shanghai  that  could  eat  his  corn  off  the  head  of  a  barrel. 

Returning  to  Paris  and  a  visit  to  Versailles,  his 
father  received,  under  date  of  May  7,  1901,  a  letter  in 
which  Mr.  Burdette  graphically  portrays  the  Con 
tinental  Sunday  as  he  saw  it: 

And  every  time  the  grand  fountain  plays,  it  costs  the 
Republic  of  France  10,000  francs.  So  you  see?  Fountains 
and  fountains  and  fountains — statues  of  marble  and  bronze — 
nymph  and  triton  and  god — art  and  beauty  and  grace — ah, 
but  they  are  beautiful.  The  jets  of  the  Grandes  Eaux  are 
75  feet  high.  There  is  nothing — at  least  no  single  piece  equal 
to  the  MacMonnies  fountain  at  our  Columbian  Fair.  But  the 
number  and  variety  of  them,  scattered  through  the  beauty  of 
this  beautiful  park,  makes  you  "doubt  if  Eden  were  more  fair". 

Thirty-five  thousand  people  were  gathered  around  the 
fountain.  About  a  thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  private  soldiers 
of  all  arms  of  the  service  were  scattered  among  them.  Not 
armed,  but  on  their  holiday.  Although  all  soldiers  here  in 
Europe  wear  their  side  arms  all  the  time,  the  troopers  and 
artillery-men  their  sabers,  and  the  infantry  men  their  bayonets, 
you  never  see  one  without  them. 
252 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

These  people  wandered  thro'  the  picture  galleries  and 
about  the  gardens  all  day,  and  thronged  about  the  fountains 
when  they  began  to  play.  They  gathered  around  them  half 
an  hour  before  they  began.  A  quiet,  orderly  decorous  crowd. 
No  drunkenness.  Not  a  drunken  or  a  noisy  man  in  the  throng. 
No  shouting.  No  rowdyism.  No  boisterous  conduct.  I 
couldn't  see  or  hear  anything  un-Sunday  like  in  the  park.  Well, 
yes,  I  did  too. 

I  remembered  how  Sunday  after  Sunday  the  tally-hos 
drive  out  from  Los  Angeles,  loaded  with  tourists  and  Los 
Angeles  people;  how  they  drive  thro'  Pasadena,  blowing  horns 
and  shouting,  disturbing  the  service  in  every  church  past 
which  they  drive,  and  making  more  noise  in  half  an  hour  than 
I  heard  all  day  Sunday  long  in^the  Park  at  Versailles.  I  don't 
think  that  we  can  safely  introduce  the  French  Sunday  into 
America.  I  don't  think,  as  a  whole,  the  French  Sunday  is  so 
good  as  our  own.  But,  I  do  think  that  some  features  of  it  far 
surpass  some  features  of  our  own. 

It  makes  a  man  a  much  better  American  to  spend  a 
year  among  other  peoples.  It  also  increases  his  respect 
for  the  other  peoples.  And  it  convinces  him  that  while 
we  know  the  most,  we  don't  know  it  all.  There  wasn't  a 
band  in  the  park.  Not  a  blare  or  a  bray  of  a  horn,  to  amuse 
all  that  crowd  of  people.  And  not  a  bar.  And  not  a  beer- 
stand. 

I  tell  you  what,  that  Sunday  in  Versailles  Park  made  a 
great  big  finger  dent  in  my  mind.  I  haven't  got  over  thinking 
of  it  yet.  It  was  without  one  exception,  the  quietest,  most 
orderly,  best  behaved  crowd  of  that  size  I  ever  saw  in  my  life. 

Returning  to  America,  the  older  boy  took  up  news 
paper  work  and  the  younger  boy  entered  Harvard  in 
the  class  graduating  in  1905.  Mr.  Burdette  and  I  re 
turned  to  California,  with  the  plan  that  he  should  take 
up  work  in  his  own  study,  doing  more  truly  literary 
work  and  less  public  work,  to  the  end  that  there  might 
be  an  output  in  permanent  form  of  expression  of  his 
literary  gifts  such  as  he  had  been  unable  hitherto  to 
compile, 

253 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

But  it  seemed  as  if  Providence  was  ordering  things 
otherwise.  This  dream  of  the  years  when  he  should  be 
able  to  devote  his  time  to  this  so-called  higher  style  of 
literature  was  not  to  be  fulfilled,  for  soon  after  our 
return,  a  committee  waited  upon  him  to  inform  him 
that  a  certain  group  of  Baptists  of  Los  Angeles  were 
considering  the  formation  of  a  new  church,  upon  the 
provision  that  he  would  consent  to  become  their  pastor. 
There  seemed  to  be  a  legitimate  field  for  a  new  church 
in  spite  of  the  number  of  Baptist  churches  already 
there,  because  of  a  large  number  of  unattached  Bap 
tists,  and  those  who  for  personal  reasons  were  unhappy 
in  their  church  relationships,  and  the  appeal  was  made 
to  him  that  here  was  a  service  for  which  he  had  dis 
tinctive  gifts,  the  ability  to  love  them  into  harmony. 

This  was  a  very  serious  undertaking  at  his  time  of 
life.  He  had  passed  what  was  then  called  the  "dead 
line"  of  the  pulpit,  and  had  had  little  experience  in  all 
that  goes  to  make  a  successful  pastor.  It  involved 
giving  up  of  a  life  of  comparative  ease  for  one  of  stren 
uous  activity,  with  the  distance  intervening  between 
his  home  in  Pasadena  and  the  scene  of  his  church  activ 
ity  in  Los  Angeles. 

I,  who  was  afterwards  to  be  known  as  the  "Pres 
byterian  wife  of  the  Baptist  Pastor",  felt  that  he  alone 
must  make  the  decision.  I  had  no  right  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  what  might  be  under  God  his  largest  life  oppor 
tunity  for  service.  My  only  expression  concerning  the 
suggestion  was  simply  to  the  end  that  if  he,  after  proper 
consideration,  felt  that  this  was  the  work  for  him  to  do, 
I  would  with  all  my  power  assist  him,  but  the  problem 
was  his  and  I  suggested  that  he  consider  it  for  ten  days. 

At  the  end  of  the  week  he  came  to  me,  saying,  "I 
have  prayerfully  considered  this  matter  and  feel  it  is 
254 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

the  work  for  me  to  undertake,  but  I  cannot  do  it  with 
out  your  intimate  help.  You  are  so  capable  to  supply 
my  lack  of  executive  ability  and  organization  exper 
ience,  that  I  cannot  attempt  it  unless  you  are  willing 
to  make  the  sacrifice  which  I  feel  I  have  no  right  to  ask 
of  you." 

There  was  but  one  answer  to  be  made  and  the  oppor 
tunity  was  given  me  to  demonstrate  my  oft-asserted 
belief  that  there  is  no  greater  work  given  to  a  wife  to  do 
than  to  help  her  husband  make  a  success  of  a  great  life 
undertaking. 

So  "the  church  which  we  builded  together"  became 
the  most  precious  thing  in  his  life,  save  his  loved  ones, 
and  the  last  to  fade  from  memory  as  life  itself  was 
waning. 

This  decision  to  turn  from  the  ease  of  self-imposed 
tasks  at  his  desk,  environed  by  the  comforts  of  leisure 
home  life,  and  assume  responsibilities  that  were  new, 
that  were  necessarily  to  be  demanding  and  constantly 
insistent,  that  multiplied  with  every  new  accomplish 
ment,  was  destined  to  open  the  way  for  what  he  declared 
should  be  "the  crowning  work  of  my  life". 

Bubbling  over  with  love  for  mankind,  rich  in  the 
understanding  of  human  needs  and  human  weaknesses, 
master  of  the  art  of  arousing  the  sympathies  and  emo 
tions,  he  not  only  played  upon  the  vibrant  strings  of 
the  human  heart  as  a  Jester  does  his  bells,  but  the  very 
chords  of  the  soul  he  touched  with  the  stroke  of  spiritual 
genius,  and  his  sweetness  of  life  and  gospel  left  an  inher 
itance  of  love  to  his  fellowmen.  He  preached  the  living 
word.  He  vitalized  and  made  modern  old  truths.  He 
radiated  sunshine,  and  men  followed  the  light.  He 
was  the  inspiration  for  Temple  Baptist  Church;  he  was 
the  inspiration  of  Temple  Baptist  Church.  No  pastor 

255 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

was  more  deeply  loved  than  was  he,  and  no  people  ever 
received  the  outpouring  and  wealth  of  affection  that  he 
bestowed  on  "my  children",  many  of  whom  in  turn 
called  him  "Padre". 

Two  questions  are  often  asked  and  naturally  so, 
"Why  did  Robert  J.  Burdette  leave  the  lecture  plat 
form  to  become  a  preacher  and  what  is  his  creed?" 
He  has  answered  them  himself  in  this  fashion — that 
he  was  not  drawn  to  the  pulpit  by  any  love  of  ease,  for 
the  lyceum  with  its  changing  audiences,  its  shifting 
scenes  of  travel,  and  the  half-dozen  lectures  that  would 
last  the  rest  of  his  life-time  was  far  lighter  work  than 
the  pulpit  with  its  demand  for  two  new  sermons  each 
week,  and  its  daily  round  of  pastoral  duties  making 
heavy  drains  upon  strength  of  body,  brain,  soul  and 
sympathy. 

Nor  was  it  for  hope  of  gain,  for  the  income  for  the 
lyceum  winter  far  surpassed  the  annual  salary  of  the 
pastorate.  Moreover,  he  was  just  ready  for  a  few 
years'  rest,  and  had  passed  the  "ministerial  dead  line" 
of  fifty  years.  Why  should  he  enter  the  ministry  with 
never  a  day  of  so-called  theological  education  or  sem 
inary  training?  A  half-organized  Church  waiting  upon 
his  answer  cried,  "Come!"  People  whom  he  thought 
he  might  help  in  their  troubles,  and  cares,  and  doubts, 
and  sorrows,  called  to  him,  "Come!"  And  the  voice 
of  God  whispered  in  his  soul,  "Go!" 

This  same  spirit  was  breathed  in  a  sentence  uttered 
in  a  prayer  after  he  became  a  pastor,  uttered  perhaps 
unconsciously  to  himself,  which  has  lived  in  the  mind  of 
one  listener  as  the  exponent  of  his  call  to  the  ministry: 
"0  Lord,  we  would  reach  one  hand  up  to  Thee  and 
one  down  to  poor,  fallen,  struggling  humanity  and  thus 
draw  each  to  the  other."  And  his  creed?  Again  he 

256 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

makes  answer,  "'Love  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  Law/ 
Love,  and  love  alone  brought  Jesus  Christ  from  heaven 
to  men;  and  only  love  can  lift  men  to  heaven/' 

When  asked  what  was  his  secret  for  attracting  men 
his  deep-meaning  reply  was,  "Preaching  the  simple 
Gospel.  Men  do  not  want  philosophical  treatises  and 
literary  essays;  they  want  more  evangelism/' 

Again,  Mr.  Burdette  declared: 

I  believe  in  old-fashioned  preaching,  but  old-fashioned  preach 
ing  is  not  obsolete  preaching.  When  this  kind  of  preaching 
was  new  it  was  up-to-date.  It  drew  lessons  from  every-day 
life — what  more  do  we.  Illustrate  with  stories  some  other 
people  like — not  always  the  kind  that  will  pleasure  yourself. 
Some  people  once  explained  to  me  about  the  binding  of  a  very 
old  book  until  I  began  to  go  to  sleep.  Then  to  save  myself, 
I  began  to  talk  about  the  inside  of  the  book  and  they  went  to 
sleep.  If  occasion  comes  to  use  humor,  do  so.  I  would  rather 
make  people  laugh  than  cry.  They  do  enough  crying  any  way. 
If  you  want  to  use  such  little  extravagancies  of  speech  as  "The 
everlasting  hills  melt  away"  there  is  no  harm.  What  you  want 
is  to  catch  the  interest  of  your  audience  and  make  the  people 
listen.  Then  tell  them  the  simple  story  of  the  Gospel  in  a 
manner  that  will  convince  them. 

And  in  an  article  contributed  by  him  to  a  religious 
publication  he  says  under  the  caption,  "This  same 
Jesus": 

"  I  believe  the  greatest  theme  on  earth  at  this  time  is  the  study, 
the  declaration  and  exaltation  of  the  character  and  divinity  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  men,  the  Son  of  God,  the  second 
person  of  the  Trinity.  There  is  that  in  the  description  and 
proclamation,  the  divine  and  human  portraiture  of  Jesus  that 
awakens  the  sincerest  interest  in  the  human  mind,  the  tenderest 
love  in  the  human  heart,  and  the  profoundest  reverence  in  the 
human  soul.  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified  and  glorified, 
His  humanity  and  His  Divinity — this  be  our  theme.  Men 
will  respond  to  this,  to  the  presentation  of  the  personality  of 
Jesus  Christ  as  they  will  to  no  other  thought." 

IT  257 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

These  deep  and  spiritual  convictions  were  not  born 
of  the  moment.  They  were  the  harvest  of  the  years  of 
God's  spirit  working  within  the  human  soul. 

Though  called  upon  suddenly  to  take  up  this  crown 
ing  work  of  his  life,  he  possessed  preparation  for  it  by 
the  enrichment  of  a  life  of  varied  experiences  and  by  a 
legacy  from  his  Baptist  ancestors  of  two  centuries  of 
pulpit  orators. 

That  his  first  ministry  should  be  the  denomination 
of  his  father,  was  the  fulfillment  of  his  reply  to  a  young 
preacher  who  once  asked  him  why  he  was  a  Baptist: 

I  am  a  Baptist  by  heredity.  My  Welsh  ancestors  were 
Baptist  preachers,  and  there  has  been  an  unbroken  line  of 
Baptist  preachers  in  the  family  down  to  the  present  day.  And 
my  father's  people  were  Baptists  of  the  old  Huguenot  stock. 
If  I  wanted  to  be  any  other  than  a  Baptist  I  couldn't  be.  I 
was  born  one.  I  love  the  Universalists  and  the  Russians,  I 
love  the  Congregationalists  and  Prussians  and  Methodists;  I 
love  the  Presbyterians  and  the  English;  but  I  was  born  a 
Baptist  and  an  American,  and  that  settles  it. 

Moreover,  I  love  the  beautiful  symbolism  of  the  ordinance 
of  the  Baptist  church.  I  love  a  baptism  that  does  not  have 
to  be  argued,  defended  or  explained,  but  is  in  itself  such  a  living 
picture  of  burial  and  resurrection  that  even  a  blind  eye  must 
close  itself  if  it  would  not  see.  And  I  love  the  creed  that  is 
written  nowhere  but  in  the  New  Testament,  which  allows  for 
growth — which,  indeed,  demands  steady  growth.  I  love  the 
simplicity  of  the  Baptist  organization.  I  love  the  democratic 
churches.  And  I  love  the  Baptist  recognition  of  the  right  of 
"private  judgment",  the  liberty  of  personal  opinion.  I  love 
the  free  responsibility  of  the  human  soul,  standing  face  to  face 
with  God,  with  no  shadow  of  pope  or  bishop  or  priest  or  man- 
made  creed  falling  between  himself  and  his  Maker.  That's 
why  I  am  a  Baptist. 

Temple  Baptist  Church,  organized  by  laymen  with 
a  layman  called  to  be  its  pastor  (for  Mr.  Burdette  was 
then  only  licensed  and  had  not  yet  been  ordained),  was 
258 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

to  be  known  as  a  laymen's  church  and  destined  for  a 
unique  history. 

To  say  that  Temple  Baptist  Church  was  organized 
with  285  charter  members  and  grew  under  his  pastorate 
to  be  1069  strong,  with  a  congregation  of  three  thou 
sand  people  twice  every  Sunday;  to  say  that  the  Sun 
day  School  started  fully  officered  and  organized  with 
175  pupils  and  18  officers  and  teachers  the  first  morning 
and  grew  to  nearly  1000  in  six  years;  to  indicate  the 
"wanderings  in  the  wilderness"  from  the  occupancy  of 
the  recently  vacated  Congregational  Church  with  a 
seating  capacity  of  only  1200,  the  old  Hazard's  Pavilion 
which  was  finally  to  be  demolished  that  the  new  church 
home  might  be  constructed,  the  worship  meanwhile  in 
the  crowded  old  Masonic  Temple,  which  again  forced 
a  march  to  the  Los  Angeles  armory  building  where  for 
six  uncomfortable  months  worship  was  maintained 
with  ever-increasing  membership,  to  the  final  dedica 
tion  of  Berean  Hall  in  Temple  Auditorium,  is  to  present 
only  a  meager  outline  of  the  faith,  courage  and  marvel 
ous  activity  which  the  young  church  established  in  the 
heart  of  the  business  life  of  a  great,  growing  city. 

In  Mr.  Burdette's  first  sermon  before  this  new  group 
of  already  loyal  workers  and  worshippers,  delivered 
July  26,  1903,  preaching  from  the  text,  "Pray  for  the 
peace  of  Jerusalem;  they  shall  prosper  that  love  Thee", 
he  bade  them — 

come  to  this  church,  bring  with  you  love,  and  peace,  and  the 
name  of  Christ,  and  you  shall  depart  in  peace  and  love.  Come 
here  with  the  hurts  of  your  life;  come  with  the  bitterness  of 
your  defeats;  come  with  the  smart  of  your  disappointments, 
with  the  crumbling  hopes  that  lie  in  ashes.  Come  with  us, 
and  prayer  and  blessing  shall  meet  you  at  the  Threshold,  the 
one  as  sweet  as  the  other  is  sure.  "They  shall  prosper  that 
love  Thee." 

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ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

With  the  first  service  the  Diadem  was  sung,  as  we 
had  heard  it  sung  in  England,  and  from  that  time  to 
this  the  morning  service  is  opened  with  the  Diadem, 
which  carries  the  mind  like  a  shaft  of  sunlight  to  the 
upper  skies. 

Rev.  George  Thomas  Dowling,  then  rector  of  Christ 
Episcopal  Church,  early  made  public  his  congratula 
tions  to  the  citizens  of  Los  Angeles  in  general  and 
Baptist  churches  in  particular,  on  the  acquisition  to 
the  city  clergy  of  Mr.  Burdette,  saying: 

He  stands  for  that  which  we  all  need,  whether  in  the  church  or 
out  of  it,  perhaps  as  much  as  anything  else — personified  sun 
shine.  For  twenty  years  I  have  known  him  in  the  East.  We 
have  traveled  together,  eaten  together,  slept  together,  and 
lectured  together;  and  of  all  the  men  whom  I  have  ever  known, 
I  have  never  met  one  more  kindly  toward  everyone,  more 
tender  in  his  judgments  of  the  weak  and  the  fallen,  more  like 
the  Master  whom  he  preaches. 

With  this  nature  as  a  background  of  all  effort,  there 
is  little  wonder  that  he  was  instrumental  in  bringing 
the  answer  of  his  own  earnest  and  oft-repeated  prayer, 
"Dear  Father,  make  this  a  spiritual  church,  controlled 
by  love". 

Up  to  this  time  Mr.  Burdette  had  been  only  a 
licensed  preacher  of  the  Baptist  Church  and  both  him 
self  and  his  people  desiring  full  ordination,  a  council 
was  called  and  a  date  fixed  for  considering  the  recog 
nition  of  the  church  and  the  ordination  of  the  pastor, 
August  13,  1903,  the  council  consisting  of  47  delegates 
representing  38  churches  and  30  pastors  and  8  visitors, 
who  formally  recognized  the  Temple  Baptist  Church  and 
before  a  crowded  auditorium  confirmed  Mr.  Burdette's 
qualifications  for  the  pulpit  and  assured  fitness  for  the 
pastorate. 

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CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT  CHURCH  WORK 

Mr.  Burdette  always  maintained  that  the  Baptist 
Church  stood  pre-eminently  for  soul  liberty,  for  the 
freedom  of  conscience  and  individual  opinion,  and  he 
emphasized  his  beliefs  when  those  examining  him 
pressed  him  for  the  stereotyped  seminary  answers  to 
the  usual  test  questions. 

Here  was  a  new  experience  for  most  of  these  church 
men — to  question  one  who  handled  more  audiences  in 
a  year  than  they  had  in  all  their  ministry,  who  had 
moved  more  hearts  in  one  lecture  season  than  they  had 
looked  down  upon  in  all  their  preaching  years,  and  who 
fearlessly  answered  their  questions  with  surprising 
frankness. 

Little  wonder  that  when  some  impossible  theological 
question  was  asked,  the  wit  of  the  candidate  carried 
him  over  all  the  rough  places  to  the  occasional  dis 
comfiture  of  his  examiners. 

During  the  cross-examination  from  the  floor,  which 
was  long  and  exacting,  occasional  flashes  of  humor  came 
to  the  surface  that  reminded  the  brethren  with  whom 
they  were  dealing  and  enlivened  the  proceedings  to  a 
delightful  degree. 

One  dignified  brother  asked  the  candidate  a  ques 
tion  on  a  knotty  point,  and  he  answered:  "I  do  not 
know;  can  you  answer  that  question  yourself?" 

"I  answered  that  question  twenty  years  ago  at  my 
own  ordination,"  said  the  dignified  brother. 

"But  I  was  not  there  to  hear  it,"  was  the  quick 
reply. 

It  was  about  at  this  stage  that  Dr.  A.  J.  Frost  rose 
up  to  the  full  height  of  his  majestic  6  feet  4  inches,  and, 
in  his  terrible  bass  voice,  remarked:  "It  ought  to  be 
understood  that  no  one  is  to  ask  a  question  in  this 
council  that  he  is  not  able  to  answer  himself." 

261 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

This  of  course  brought  down  the  house. 

Mr.  Burdette  admitted  that  his  views  as  to  the  final 
disposition  of  the  wicked  dead  were  not  exactly  in 
accord  with  commonly  accepted  views  on  that  point 
among  Baptists,  and  that  his  private  interpretation  of 
questions  concerning  communion  were  such  as  were 
held  by  the  English  Baptists.  This  latter  opinion  he 
elucidated  in  a  sermon  a  month  later,  on  the  text  "This 
do  in  remembrance  of  me",  in  which  he  said: 

A  "sacrament"  we  call  the  "Lord's  Supper",  that  is,  a 
sign  and  an  oath,  "sacramentum" — the  oath  of  allegiance 
which  the  Roman  soldier  took  on  his  enlistment.  It  is  "an 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  grace";  the  pledge  by 
which  we  bind  our  souls  to  the  Lord.  And  we  call  it  the  "  Lord's 
Supper",  because  it  was  instituted  by  our  dear  Lord  Jesus;  it 
was  at  the  evening  time,  and  at  the  close  of  the  Passover  supper. 

We  call  it  "the  communion"  because  here  we  commune 
with  Christ  and  His  people,  our  brethren;  it  is  spoken  of  as 
the  "Eucharist",  "a  thanksgiving",  because  in  the  institution 
of  it,  Jesus  gave  thanks  as  He  broke  the  bread  and  poured  the 
wine.  He  did  not  "bless"  the  bread  and  wine.  Matthew, 
Mark  and  Luke  tell  us  of  the  institution  of  the  supper,  and 
Paul  tells  how  by  special  revelation  he  also  received  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  the  story  of  the  supper  and  the  manner  of  its  observ 
ance.  John  gives  us  conversation  and  the  last  discourse. 

And  among  the  many  sweet  and  beautiful  ideas  which 
cluster  about  this,  the  holiest  place  on  earth,  there  occurs  to 
you  the  social  thought;  it  is  the  assembling  of  the  household 
of  faith;  at  the  Lord's  table;  upon  His  own  invitation.  The 
gathering  of  the  family. 

We  sit  here  side  by  side  with  brothers  and  sisters  whose 
faces,  it  may  be,  we  have  never  seen  before,  and  whom  we  may 
never  meet  again  until  our  Lord  shall  drink  the  fruit  of  the 
vine  new  with  us  in  His  Father's  kingdom;  yet  are  we  all  of 
the  one  household.  At  no  other  place  in  all  the  worship  and 
service  of  the  church  are  thoughts  of  denominational  differ 
ences  of  creed  and  method  of  ordinance  pushed  farther  away 
from  our  hearts.  It  is  His  table;  and  we,  present  ourselves  as 

262 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

His  guests,  come  with  no  thought  in  our  hearts  save  of  the  love 
of  Jesus,  our  crucified  and  risen  Saviour,  who  meets  with  us. 

He  was  ordained  in  spite  of  the  sentiment  expressed 
on  the  part  of  one  of  the  church  papers  in  reporting  the 
council  meeting,  which  said: 

Questions  are  supposed  to  issue  from  the  council  to  the  candi 
date  and  not  from  the  candidate  to  the  council.  We  do  not 
remember  to  have  heard  of  a  case,  heretofore,  where  one  pro 
fessing  to  hold  views  of  baptism  and  the  supper  differing  from 
those  of  the  denomination  at  large  in  this  country,  was  ordained 
to  the  ministry.  It  is  allowed  laymen  to  hold  different  views, 
provided  they  do  not  attempt  to  propagate  them;  but  it  is 
not  allowed  candidates  for  the  ministry  to  profess  them  at 
ordination. 

Mr.  Burdette  made  a  most  favorable  impression 
before  the  council.  His  account  of  his  conversion  and 
call  to  the  ministry  was  so  simple,  and  true  to  the  best 
traditions,  that  all  hearts  were  deeply  moved.  His 
statement  of  doctrines  and  church  polity  was  not  made 
in  the  language  of  the  schools,  but  showed  clearly  that 
the  candidate  was  familiar  with  his  Bible  and  was  true 
as  steel  to  the  great  fundamental  facts  of  inspiration, 
God's  sovereign  love,  Jesus  receiving  penalty  in  the 
sinner's  stead,  the  efficacy  of  the  atoning  blood,  and 
the  absolute  necessity  of  a  converted  church  member 
ship. 

Rev.  A.  J.  Frost  performed  the  ceremony  of  "Laying 
on  of  hands"  and  delivered  the  charge  to  the  Pastor. 
He  smilingly  said:  "Never  be  ashamed  of  being  a 
Baptist.  You  are  a  Baptist.  I  thank  God  that  what 
there  is  of  you  is  Baptist." 

The  learned  Doctor  is  perhaps  the  largest  man 
physically  in  the  whole  Baptist  communion;  and  Mr. 
Burdette  stood  5  feet  4  inches.  So  when  this  great 

263 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

man,  from  his  towering  height,  looked  down  upon  the 
new  preacher,  it  could  not  fail  to  cause  some  amuse 
ment,  but  the  people  of  Temple  Church  declared  they 
would  not  have  exchanged  the  "Little  Minister".  No! 
Not  for  the  biggest  man  in  the  world! 

The  benediction  was  pronounced  by  Rev.  Robert 
J.  Burdette,  and  this  man,  known  as  editor,  humorous 
lecturer,  poet,  writer,  soldier,  as  well  as  an  exponent  of 
many  other  lines  of  life,  stood  changed — or  unchanged 
according  to  the  verdict  of  the  outer  or  inner  life — into 
a  regular  Baptist  preacher.  Three  years  later  he  was 
to  have  conferred  upon  him  by  the  Theological  Semi 
nary  of  Kalamazoo  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity, 
thus  rounding  out  a  long  life  of  rich  and  varied  exper 
iences. 

Through  three  years  of  wandering,  made  necessary 
by  the  ever-increasing  congregations  which  overflowed 
each  auditorium  secured  for  church  services,  and  under 
the  most  distracting  conditions  a  young  church  ever 
experienced,  Mr.  Burdette's  optimism,  cheer  and  faith 
led  them  joyously,  following  the  motto  he  early  gave 
them,  "Keep  sweet  and  keep  moving". 

When  Berean  Hall,  which  was  destined  to  be  a 
prayer-meeting  room,  Sunday  School  room  and  general 
working  center  of  Temple  Church,  was  dedicated  July  29, 
1906,  the  pastor,  standing  on  the  platform,  faced  a  happy- 
hearted  audience  and  preached  the  dedication  sermon 
with  the  sunshine  of  his  own  heart  shining  through  the 
windows  of  his  soul.  There  was  a  feeling  that  it  might 
have  been  this  occasion  that  inspired  Julian  Hawthorne 
to  write: 

Mr.  Burdette  has  the  look  of  a  man  who  is  happy  in  his  work. 
All  true  work  lovingly  done  is  good.  But  the  work  of  the  Chris 
tian  Minister,  in  spite  of  all  those  professors  of  it  who  have 

264 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

swerved  from  the  direct  path,  or  who  have  listened  to  strange 
counsels,  or  compromised  in  one  way  or  another  with  the 
enemy,  is  still  the  highest  work  of  all,  for  whose  who  are  com 
petent  to  do  it.  The  man  who  is  happy  in  it  must  therefore 
be  a  man  with  a  genuine  message,  to  whom  it  is  worth  one's 
while  to  listen,  who  merits  respect. 

And  when  the  inward  call  has  been  so  powerful  as  to  draw 
him  away  in  mature  years  from  an  established  place  and  path 
in  life,  it  seems  to  give  him  a  distinction  altogether  exceptional. 
From  ancient  down  to  modern  times,  there  have  never  been 
lacking  men  of  this  distinction  and  their  renown  is  part  of 
history.  Mr.  Burdette  was  of  their  company.  And  those 
who  listened  to  his  voice  might  well  believe  that  a  truth  found 
utterance  through  him,  purer  and  sounder  than  often  heard 
from  latter  day  pulpits. 

It  was  this  "little  man,  born  with  the  genius  for 
loving",  that  made  possible  the  three  years'  history 
which  could  be  thus  condensed: 

Temple  Church,  born  amid  adverse  circumstances,  without 
a  name,  without  a  home,  without  a  pastor,  she  today,  after 
three  years'  wilderness  journey,  stands  within  the  walls  of  her 
own  home,  beautiful  for  situation,  with  a  name  known  far  and 
near,  a  pastor  beloved  in  many  lands,  her  back  to  the  struggles 
of  the  past  and  her  face  to  the  glorious  future  that  God  has 
marked  out  for  her  if  she  but  follow  Him.  "Only  be  strong 
and  very  courageous  for  the  Lord  my  God  is  with  thee  whither 
soever  thou  goest." 

At  the  dedication  of  the  Auditorium  itself  by  the 
Temple  Baptist  Church,  who  took  possession  of  it  as 
their  Sabbath  home  Sunday  morning,  November  1, 
1908,  Mr.  Burdette  used  these  words,  which  might 
have  been  an  epitome  of  his  own  efforts  through  life: 

To  the  sweetest  ministry  of  music;  to  the  highest  ideals  of 
art;  to  the  education  of  the  body,  mind  and  soul;  to  the  train 
ing  of  the  best  citizenship  and  the  truest  patriotism;  to  the 
strongest  manhood  and  the  purest  womanhood;  to  the  brother- 

265 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

hood  of  man,  the  fellowship  of  righteousness,  the  fatherhood  of 
God,  and  the  teaching  and  living  of  the  whole  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  His  Son,  the  Saviour  of  Men;  to  the  training  of  all  that 
is  best  and  truest  in  daily  toil,  in  wholesome  recreation,  inno 
cent  amusement,  and  Sabbath  rest  and  worship;  to  the  sacred 
unity  of  the  home;  to  the  holiness  of  family  ties;  to  the  pro 
motion  of  temperance,  chastity,  truth  and  righteousness,  we, 
the  congregation  of  Temple  Baptist  church,  dedicate  this  house. 
In  the  name  of  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost.  Amen. 

This  dedication  was  followed  by  such  a  petition  that 
there  seemed  to  be  the  commitment  of  God  and  man  to 
the  great  purpose: 

Thou  Great  Master  of  the  Temple,  we  pray  for  a  blessing 
wide  as  Thy  mercy  and  deep  as  Thy  love  upon  this  Church  of 
Thy  planting.  Be  Thou  its  eternal  Refuge,  Dear  God,  the 
Mighty.  A  shadow  from  the  heat,  a  shelter  from  the  storm. 
Enfold  it  in  Thy  enduring  love  as  with  a  garment  of  light. 
Make  it  abide  in  Thy  love,  Dear  Christ  Jesus,  our  Saviour. 
May  it  ever  dwell  under  the  blessings  of  Thy  cross,  in  the 
shelter  of  Thy  Arms.  Be  Thou  to  it  a  shield  in  the  day  of 
battle;  a  guide  in  the  weary  maze  of  the  wilderness  of  doubts 
and  fears.  Keep  it  from  the  evil  of  the  world.  Teach  it  day 
by  day  to  labor  in  Thy  words,  to  rest  in  Thy  prayers.  Make 
its  way  bright  with  faith,  its  burdens  light  with  love.  Teach 
it  to  pray,  Dear  Lord.  Teach  it  to  live.  Teach  it  to  love. 
May  it  gaze  so  constantly  on  Thy  face  that  its  face  will  grow 
into  Thy  likeness,  not  by  the  change  of  death,  Dear  Lord,  but 
by  the  transforming  power  of  the  highest,  noblest,  purest  and 
truest  life.  Thy  blessing  forever  upon  this  dear  Church. 

The  power  of  the  word  and  the  preacher  behind  it, 
and  that  without  sensational  attractions,  drew  more 
than  capacity  audiences,  and  the  necessity,  even  with 
this  increased  seating  capacity,  of  turning  people  away 
from  each  service  Sunday  after  Sunday,  was  a  constant 
regret  to  Mr.  Burdette;  not  that  he  vainly  wished  to 
have  record-breaking  congregations,  but  that  with 
266 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

simple  spiritual  earnestness  he  prayerfully  sought  to 
"draw  all  men  unto  Him"  whom  he  loved  and  served. 
That  his  prayer  was  not  in  vain  was  proven  through 
the  years  of  his  pastorate  by  the  fact  that  every  bap 
tismal  Sunday  found  candidates  ready  for  baptism; 
every  prayer-meeting  night  new  applicants  were  pre 
sented  for  membership  and  every  communion  Sunday 
large  numbers  received  the  right  hand  of  fellowship. 

That  this  Sunday  home  of  Temple  Church  was  in 
an  auditorium,  used  for  other  purposes  during  the 
week,  brought  from  those  who  cared  much  for  conven 
tional  material  church  buildings,  honest  words  of 
criticism.  While  it  was  true  that  the  Sunday  School 
rooms,  the  parlors,  the  club-rooms  and  the  workshop 
of  the  church  were  for  the  church  only  and  that  there 
were  126  offices  in  the  building,  rented  for  the  most 
part  to  physicians,  that  there  might  be  an  assured 
income  for  the  Auditorium  Company,  the  members  of 
Temple  Church  owning  less  than  one-third  of  the  stock 
of  the  company — this  double  use  of  the  auditorium  was 
not  all  that  might  be  desired  by  those  whose  church 
homes  had  been  closed  to  the  public  all  but  one  day  in 
the  week.  Mr.  Burdette's  years  of  peculiar  training 
fitted  him,  as  few  preachers  were  ever  prepared,  to 
overcome  all  these  unusual  conditions  and  to  turn  the 
very  difficulties  of  the  situation  to  great  advantage. 

The  church  activities  which  could  so  bless  the  com 
munity  life  of  the  downtown  heart  of  a  great  city  were 
thus  directed  by  one  preeminently  fitted  to  attract  and 
hold  the  transient,  homeless  people,  as  well  as  those 
who  permanently  abided  within  the  city;  for  was  he 
not  often  called  "Pilgrim's  Progress  Mr.  Great  Heart?" 
Mr.  Burdette's  reply  to  these  critics  was  given  in  a 
sermon  on  "Consecrated  Places",  and  is  so  character- 

267 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

istic  of  his  attitude  towards  life,  his  fearlessness  of  "the 
brethren",  and  his  fighting  spirit  in  the  cause  of  right 
eousness,  that  I  quote  at  length: 

Last  week  a  man  sent  me  this  message:  "How  dare  you 
presume  to  preach  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  in  a  theater?" 

I  don't  preach  in  a  theater.  I  would  like  to,  sometimes, 
but  the  theater  people  will  not  permit  it.  I  preach  the  gospel 
in  a  fitting  place.  We  are  assembled  this  moment  in  what  is 
commonly  called  a  church.  This  is  a  consecrated  house  of 
worship,  consecrated,  so  far  as  man  can  consecrate  any  place, 
by  the  speaking  lips  and  reverent  hearts  of  3000  people,  "to 
the  brotherhood  of  man,  the  fellowship  of  righteousness,  the 
fatherhood  of  God,  the  teaching  and  living  of  the  whole  gospel 
of  Jesus  .Christ,  His  Son,  our  Saviour."  I  not  only  dare 
preach  that  gospel  anywhere,  but  I  must  preach  it  every 
where. 

God  called  Moses  to  his  mighty  mission  out  of  the  flaming 
acacia  bush  in  the  desert,  without  first  having  the  bush  conse 
crated  and  the  ground  made  holy  by  an  organization  of  men  and 
women  with  psalm  and  chant,  with  liturgy  and  ritual  and  with 
words  of  consecration  falling  from  human  lips  with  all  the 
pomp  and  humility,  the  splendor  and  simplicity  of  a  religious 
service. 

We  come  together  sometimes,  we  men,  to  build  a  house  to 
the  name  of  God  and  we  say  it  shall  be  sacred  to  holy  things, 
to  holy  thoughts  and  to  holy  lives.  To  that  end  we  hold  a 
solemn  assemblage  at  the  laying  of  the  corner  stone  and  a 
service  of  consecration  when  the  sacred  edifice  is  completed. 
With  words  of  praise  and  hearts  of  reverence  we  do  all  that 
is  in  human  power  to  make  the  building  sacred  to  His  name, 
and  we  go  home  satisfied  that  we  have  consecrated  the  house 
of  God;  we  have,  we,  with  hearts  that  are  sometimes  foul, 
sometimes  black  dens  of  evil  thoughts  and  low  desires,  minds 
that  are  at  times  charnel  houses  of  ignorance;  we  have  conse 
crated  a  church,  we  have  made  a  house  holy. 

Men  consecrated  a  house  to  God  one  time — the  first  house 
ever  builded  to  His  name  and  under  His  own  direction.  They 
made  it  as  holy  as  men  could  make  anything,  with  song  and 
praise  and  music  of  instruments,  with  ascription  of  righteous- 
208 


THE  AUDITORIUM,  Los  ANGELES,  HOME  OF  TEMPLE  BAPTIST  CHURCH 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

ness  and  holiness  to  God,  with  a  high  priest  slaying  the  sacrifice, 
offering  the  people's  oblation,  the  sin  offering,  the  sacrifice  of 
peace  offerings,  fire  from  God  consuming  all  that  was  offered 
upon  the  altar,  and  in  an  instant  the  service  turned  into  an 
hour  of  terror  by  the  flame  of  Jehovah's  wrath  devouring  the 
sons  of  the  high  priest,  who  had  offered  strange  fire  before  the 
altars.  The  unholiness  of  men  carrying  strange  fire  in  their 
hearts,  false  worship  in  their  souls,  hypocrisy  in  their  thoughts, 
can  make  unholy  the  holiest  place  that  human  hands  have 
formally  consecrated  to  divine  worship  and  service. 

I  suppose  that  the  people  who  object  to  religious  services 
in  the  Auditorium  can  see  nothing  holy,  sacred  or  pure  around 
the  corner  of  First  and  Main  Streets,  or  down  on  Azusa  Street, 
anywhere  in  the  slum  district,  amidst  a  cordon  of  saloons,  of 
vile  houses  populated  with  vile  people,  localities  given  over  to 
vice  in  its  lowest  form.  But  I  have  seen,  and  any  one  may  see, 
those  places  made  holy,  consecrated  to  God  even  as  the  white 
altar,  radiant  in  its  illuminating  candles  in  a  grand  cathedral, 
by  a  little  circle  of  the  children  of  God,  a  song  of  praise  and 
entreaty  shouted  amidst  the  noises  of  the  street  on  a  week 
night  by  untrained  voices,  a  girl  in  the  dress  of  a  Salvation 
Army  lassie,  kneeling  in  the  street  and  praying  for  the  careless, 
sneering  throng  hurrying  by  her  on  the  way  to  the  theater  or 
saloon  or  gaming  house.  That  is  consecrated  ground. 

Here  is  a  dance  hall,  viler  and  lower  than  mere  human 
imagination  can  paint  it  in  its  degradation  and  sin,  and  into 
it,  without  the  prayers  of  consecration  by  a  titled  dignitary, 
without  the  services  of  a  recognized  church,  comes  a  man 
whose  own  unholy,  drink-sodden  body  God  has  transformed 
into  a  beautiful  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  Jerry  McCauley's 
Mission  will  live  forever  in  the  record  of  the  churches  that 
"overcome".  He  preached  where  sin  most  abounded,  that 
grace  might  still  more  abound. 

Do  you  remember  the  old  "Pavilion",  that  came  to  be 
best  known  as  the  home  of  prize  fights?  Do  you  remember 
where  it  stood?  Somehow,  when  I  speak  of  it,  I  always  have 
to  stop  and  think  where  it  was.  Do  you  remember  its  old 
reputation,  when  it  was  the  only  home  of  prize  fighting,  dog 
shows,  chicken  shows,  any  old  thing  that  was  dirty  and  noisy 
and  smelly,  in  Los  Angeles?  What  is  this  great  concourse  of 

269 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

pilgrims  from  all  over  America,  from  the  distant  continent  and 
the  islands  of  the  sea  converging  toward  the  old  Pavilion?  It 
is  the  great  General  Methodist  Conference,  and  it  occupies  the 
old  barracks  for  a  month,  without  any  other  consecration  ser 
vice  than  the  very  essential  one  of  oceans  of  water  and  islands 
of  soap!  Wasn't  it  a  holy  place  during  the  hallelujah  sessions 
of  that  conference  of  God's  people? 

Then  Chapman,  the  Presbyterian,  came  into  it  with  his 
soldiers  of  the  cross,  and  we  all  wrought  and  prayed  with  him 
and  his  yoke  fellows.  Sinners  were  saved;  God's  name  was 
glorified.  Wasn't  it  holy  then?  Campbell  Morgan,  with  his 
rare,  pure  spirituality,  came  into  it  and  all  the  churches  of 
Los  Anglees  sat  under  the  blessedness  of  his  ministry  and  the 
saints  were  strengthened  in  the  faith  and  made  glad  in  the 
Lord.  Wasn't  it  holy  then?  Then  Frederick  B.  Meyer  came 
over  from  London,  and  he  preached  the  gospel  of  our  Lord 
with  ineffable  sweentess  and  light,  and  our  souls  were  lifted 
up  into  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus  as  we  listened.  Wasn't 
it  a  holy  place  then?  Wasn't  it  a  fit  place  in  which  to  preach 
the  gospel  of  salvation? 

Chapman,  Morgan,  Meyer,  Bishop  McCabe,  Baptist, 
Methodist,  Presbyterian,  Congregationalist,  all  preached  the 
gospel  and  brought  sinners  to  Christ  in  it.  Then,  October  18, 
1904,  the  last  brutal  prize  fight  was  fought  in  it.  The  old 
Pavilion  was  jammed  to  the  roof.  Profanity  and  obscenity, 
yells  of  applause  or  derisions  from  the  lips  of  half  drunken  men 
roared  through  the  crazy  old  barracks. 

Then  a  little  band  of  Christian  men  and  women,  strong  in 
faith  and  rich  in  love,  bought  the  building;  with  stronger  faith 
they  tore  it  down,  and  this  glittering  gem  of  beauty  and  grace 
in  the  coronet  of  Los  Angeles  is  an  answer  to  the  prayer !  Dare 
I  preach  the  gospel  of  the  Blessed  Lord  in  this  Temple  of  light 
and  loveliness?  So  long  as  I  may,  I  will!  And  let  the  man 
who  cries  out  against  it,  go  down  on  Azusa  Street,  buy  some 
dive  he  can  find  down  there,  tear  it  down  and  on  its  unholy 
ruins  build  for  the  good  of  men  and  the  glory  of  God  a  Temple 
of  Grace  like  this!  Then  he  may  talk! 

In  this  day  of  specialists  and  specialization,  every 
corporation  and  organization  seeks  the  man  who  can 
270 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

do  best  one  thing  and  do  one  thing  best.  It  seems  left 
to  the  churches — at  least,  a  vast  majority  of  them — to 
seek  the  man  who  can  do  best  everything  and  then 
expect  him  to  do  everything  best.  He  must  not  only 
be  the  best  preacher  in  town  and  the  best  pastor,  but 
there  must  be  no  one  else  who  can  bury  their  dead, 
marry  their  living,  visit  the  sick,  comfort  those  in 
trouble,  represent  them  at  all  conventions  and  assem 
blies,  deliver  addresses  for  all  departments  of  the 
Church,  keep  in  touch  with  all  the  outside  activities 
that  the  Church  should  be  a  factor  in,  and,  finally,  as 
at  the  beginning,  he  must  be  the  best  sermonizer  in 
the  community. 

This  Mr.  Burdette  did  and  more,  but  with  mar 
velous  physical  powers  in  spite  of  his  over-strenuous 
life  up  to  this  his  sixty-third  year.  With  great  versa 
tility  of  talent  and  the  rare  ability  to  respond  instantly 
to  utterly  divergent  demands,  it  became  a  physical 
impossibility  for  him  longer  to  administer  the  affairs 
of  a  parish  the  territory  of  which  covered  more  ground 
than  the  state  of  Rhode  Island  and  whose  members 
numbered  well  toward  a  thousand  souls.  In  1907  an 
assistant  pastor,  Rev.  Edwin  Rawson  Brown,  was 
called  to  the  yoke-fellowship  in  the  work,  and  at  the 
close  of  his  first  year  of  service  Mr.  Burdette's  heartiness 
and  generosity  of  spirit  were  shown  in  his  report  to  the 
Church. 

The  "Open  Door"  to  the  Pastor's  study  on  Wed 
nesday  afternoons,  was  possibly  a  greater  service  to 
those  "unattached"  than  to  Temple  members,  and  in 
the  records  kept  there  is  found  the  names  of  those  who 
repeatedly  came  for  help,  especially  the  names  of  young 
men. 

The  letter  of  deep  appreciation  for  encouragement 

271 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

"along  the  way",  a  kind  word,  a  cheery  bit  of  advice, 
a  helpful  deed,  would  fill  a  volume,  and  are  worthy  of 
one  because  of  their  deep  sincerity.  "It  was  such  a 
little  thing  to  do/'  the  Pastor  would  say;  "but  it  meant 
everything  to  me/'  was  the  universal  reply. 

Mr.  Burdette  felt  most  intensely  that  in  estimating 
values  by  human  life  and  human  activities  the  richest 
asset  the  church  had  was  its  children  and  its  young 
people.  He  feared  for  the  child  that  was  without  the 
Sunday  School  habit  because  of  the  peril  of  forming  less 
desirable  habits  and  he  earnestly  prayed,  "give  us  the 
children ";  make  us  all  Bereans,  that  we  may  "search 
the  scriptures"  daily. 

Upon  his  suggestion  that  a  Baptist  Sunday  School 
was  the  Navy  of  the  Lord,  the  superintendent,  T.  T. 
Woodruff,  enthusiastically  took  up  the  idea  and  organ 
ized  the  Sunday  School  along  nautical  lines.  The 
pastor,  who  was  to  be  known  as  the  Admiral,  co-oper 
ated  heartily;  it  fired  his  fancy  and  imagination  and 
many  a  delightful  nautical  talk  did  he  build  for  them. 
One  is  vividly  remembered,  "Sailing  by  Chart",  which 
easily  carries  its  own  scriptural  lesson,  but  which  was 
applied  with  such  perfect  nautical  terms  as  to  call  for 
enthusiastic  comment.  The  "chart"  was  the  Bible 
charting  the  shores;  the  islands,  the  shallows,  rocks, 
the  probable  derelicts,  the  revolving  lights  of  "Watch 
and  Pray",  the  bell  buoys  of  "Duty"  and  "Service", 
and  his  closing  words  were: 

So  glad  that  we  belong  to  the  Navy  of  the  Lord.  So  glad 
that  the  good  ship  "Temple  Bible  School"  has  the  best  captain 
that  ever  walked  the  quarter  deck — good  bluff  and  tough, 
rough  and  ready  old  Commodore  Woodruff — God  bless  his  tarry 
top  lights.  I  hope  so  long  as  this  is  a  Bible  School  it  will  never 
drop  the  nautical  figure  he  invented  for  us.  And  what  other 
272 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

school  has  such  a  naval  constructor,  such  a  Yankee  ship-builder 
as  "our  own  Leslie  McClure"?  our  own  " Chips"?  He's  equal 
to  any  thing  that  can  float,  from  a  life  raft  to  a  battleship.  Such 
a  ship  and  such  a  crew;  always  willing;  always  loyal;  always 
obedient  and  prompt,  for  everything  at  sea  goes  on  the  run 
and  jump — the  safety  of  the  ship  often  depends  upon  punc 
tuality  and  promptness,  especially  when  we're  tacking  ship  off 
shore  in  a  dangerous  place,  with  teacher  and  every  boy  and 
girl  sailor  at  their  stations,  when  the  order  "full  and  by" 
changes  to  "full  for  stays",  and 

The  ship  bends  lower  before  the  breeze 
As  her  broadside  fair  to  the  blast  she  lays, 

And  she  swifter  springs  to  the  rising  seas, 
As  the  pilot  calls,  "  Stand  by  for  stays  ". 

The  Elementary  Department  was  his  special  delight. 
"The  Babies "  were  very  near  his  heart  and  often  he 
was  heard  to  say,  "Whoever  has  to  be  neglected  by  the 
Pastor,  the  Babies  must  never  be";  and  every  Sunday 
morning  the  hour  for  leaving  his  home  in  Pasadena  was 
jealously  guarded,  that  he  might  not  be  too  late  to  see 
"the  blessed  babies"  before  they  were  dismissed.  He 
always  had  a  little  message  for  them  to  which  they  gave 
a  welcoming  wave  of  their  little  hands  or  sang  him  a 
good  morning  song  that  brought  tears  to  his  eyes  and 
sunshine  to  his  heart.  One  of  the  tenderest  poems  he 
ever  penned  begins  and  ends: 

Dear  little  Buds  in  the  Garden  of  God, 
Tenderly  growing  by  night  and  by  day; 

Jesus  of  Bethlehem!    Keep  them  thine  own, 
Sweet  as  Thy  childhood  in  Nazareth  town. 

All  young  life  was  precious  to  this  man  whose  heart 
continued  to  "beat  forever  like  a  boy's"  and  who  knew 
so  well  how  to  "keep  the  dew  of  youth"  and  the  opti- 

18  273 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

mism  of  childhood.  In  his  talks,  in  his  secular  writings, 
and  in  his  sermons  he  pleaded  with  parents  for  the 
religious  training  of  their  children. 

Develop  the  religious  habit  in  your  children.  Bring  them 
to  church.  Where  are  your  children  this  morning?  What  are 
they  doing?  Anything  better  than  they  would  be  doing  here? 
Are  they  better  occupied  than  they  would  be  sitting  here  in 
the  house  of  God  Sunday  morning,  forming,  unconsciously  to 
themselves,  a  habit  of  church-going?  Wouldn't  that  be  better 
than  for  them  to  be,  just  as  unconsciously,  forming  the  habit 
of  not  going  to  church?  They  should  expect  to  go  to  church 
just  as  regularly  every  Sunday  morning  as  they  do  to  go  to 
school  five  mornings  in  the  week. 

You  say,  "  Well,  they  can't  understand  the  sermon".  Well, 
your  pastor  isn't  likely  to  preach  to  children  when  there  are  no 
children  to  preach  to.  You  fill  the  empty  pews  with  your  little 
ones,  and  they  will  understand  him.  I  could  understand  ser 
mons  that  were  preached  to  grown  people  long,  long  before  I 
got  over  crying  because  I  couldn't  understand  fractions.  But 
my  parents  didn't  tell  me  I  needn't  go  to  school  because  I 
couldn't  understand  the  lessons.  For  that  matter,  I  don't 
understand  fractions  yet.  I  am  glad  there  is  no  examination 
in  complex  fractions  and  cube  root  at  the  gate  of  heaven.  I'd 
never  get  in. 

The  value  of  this  training  in  his  own  life  was  por 
trayed  when  in  1909  he  was  asked  for  an  "Apprecia 
tion"  for  a  little  booklet,  "In  Remembrance",  on  the 
passing  of  Dr.  Henry  Griggs  Weston,  the  beloved 
president  for  forty  years  of  Crozier  Theological 
Seminary. 

Doctor  Weston  was  my  pastor  when  I  was  a  boy  eight 
years  old.  For  seven  years,  in  the  First  Baptist  Church,  of 
Peoria,  111.,  my  grandfather  and  my  father  were  his  deacons 
during  that  blessed  pastorate.  For  more  than  half  a  century 
the  judgments  of  the  increasing  years  have  blended  with  yester 
day's  memories;  and  the  man's  estimation  is  the  boy's  impres- 
274 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

sion,  deepened  and  heightened,  but  never  revised.  I  sat  at  his 
feet,  then,  looking  up  to  him  in  loving  reverence;  my  attitude 
never  changed,  though  my  hair  turned  gray  as  his  grew  white. 
"For  the  love  of  Christ  constraineth  me"  is  the  dearest 
of  the  texts  I  remember,  and  I  recall  so  clearly  the  passages  of 
truth  and  beauty  in  the  sermon.  I  was  a  boy  listening  to  a 
scholar.  But  as  I  listened  I  could  understand.  His  sermons 
were  for  all  his  congregation.  The  old  men  leaned  forward  to 
hear  every  word.  The  children,  with  brightening  eyes,  looked 
up  eagerly  at  the  passages  intended  especially  for  them,  and 
which  were  always  kindly  with  the  beautiful  smile  that  made 
them  tender  as  caresses.  And  his  voice,  strong,  magnetic, 
gentle,  persuasive — that  alone  would  have  kept  him  forever 
young  to  me. 

So  strong  and  yet  tender  was  Mr.  Burdette's  hold 
on  the  Sunday  School,  there  was  instituted  after  his 
resignation  as  Pastor,  a  Burdette  service  which  is  held 
on  the  Sunday  nearest  the  date  of  his  birthday,  July 
30th,  and  in  which  a  specially  prepared  program,  with 
an  appropriate  stage  setting,  is  presented  during  the 
regular  Sunday  School  hour.  His  last  public  appear 
ance  was  on  this  occasion  in  1914,  when  in  conscious 
weakness  he  gave  them  as  their  Admiral  his  parting 
message,  looking  down  into  their  hearts  and  faces  with 
a  love  most  tender,  and,  seemingly  through  them,  out 
beyond,  straining  the  fading  sight  to  catch  even  then 
the  first  glimpses  of  Beulah  Land. 

This  birthday  service  is  continued  to  this  day  and 
his  messages  and  spirit  still  abide  with  the  young  life 
of  the  church  he  loved  so  dearly. 

That  his  last  typewritten  effort  should  have  been  a 
letter  to  Mr.  T.  T.  Woodruff,  Superintendent  of  the 
Sunday  School,  was  as  he  would  have  wished  it.  The 
Superintendent,  whom  he  always  addressed  as  "  Com 
modore",  had  sent  him  a  "Log  Book"  of  the  Sunday 
School  exercises,  to  which  he  replied  October  8,  1914, 

275 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

five  weeks  before  he  sailed  out  into  the  haven  of  eternal 
peace: 

I  have  read  the  Log  Book  a  dozen  times,  and  my  heart  has 
O.K'd.  it  every  time.  For  I  have  laid  my  heart  on  its  dear 
pages  as  I  recalled  the  sweet  surprise  of  that  day — the  blessed 
ship  in  gala  dress,  the  happy  crew  in  "liberty  clothes ",  the 
Admiral  astonished  out  of  speech,  which  was  itself  a  marvellous 
thing,  and  the  Commodore  on  the  bridge — the  best  and  blessed- 
est  Commodore  that  ever  commanded  the  best  and  dearest 
Gospel  Ship  ever  launched — I  could  see  it  all  as  plainly  as 
though  I  had  been  there. 

What  a  genius  you  are!  What  a  ship  you  have  made  of  it! 
What  a  clear,  unmistakable  call  God  sent  you  for  the  ministry 
he  prepared  for  you!  I  am  so  glad  for  the  "sea  of  glass  before 
the  throne,  like  unto  crystal".  I  sometimes  wonder  if  the  dear 
Lord  thought  of  you  when  he  prepared  that  feature  of  the 
celestial  landscape.  The  "river  of  life"  is  all  right,  of  course, 
and  would  be  all-sufficient  for  the  most  of  us.  But,  dear  me — 
you  couldn't  navigate  a  full  rigged  ship  on  a  river! 

How  happy  have  been  my  years  of  service  with  you,  afloat 
and  ashore,  my  clumsy  fingers  cannot  tell  you.  I  think  them 
over  so  many  times  in  the  night-times  when  I  cannot  sleep; 
I  begin  back  in  the  early  days  when  it  was  such  a  little  ship, 
when  you  mustered  the  normal  class  at  a  time  when  it  was 
hardly  big  enough  for  the  smallest  watch  on  the  ship,  up  to  these 
glad,  proud,  happy  days  when  it  can  officer  every  detail  on  the 
ship.  They  have  been  happy  years,  haven't  they? 

Dear  Boy — I  do  thank  God  for  blessing  these  closing  years 
of  life  and  service  with  such  a  friend  as  you — so  dear,  so  loyal, 
so  true — I'll  think  of  you  when  I  get  to  Heaven. 

Always  lovingly  your  Pastor, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

If  Mr.  Burdette  had  a  "  specialty "  as  Pastor,  it  was 
in  the  conduct  of  the  prayer-meetings,  which  he  termed 
the  "home-gatherings".  He  sensed  that  it  could  be 
made  the  opportunity  for  the  "heart-to-heart  life" 
that  mellows  the  ground  for  the  sowing  time.  So  happy 

276 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

was  he  in  his  methods  of  leading  all  kinds  of  people  to 
overflow  the  prayer-meeting  room — each  feeling  at 
liberty  to  bring  to  it  his  individual  contribution  of 
word  or  smile  or  prayer,  song  or  testimony,  and  each 
taking  away  his  own  individual  blessing — that  denom 
inational  papers  and  pastors  requested  him  to  publish, 
in  pamphlet  form,  "Prayer-meeting  Topics,  Sugges 
tions  and  Methods",  to  which  he  made  reply: 

I  am  the  happy  Pastor  of  a  "prayer-meeting"  Church. 
Temple  Church  was  organized  with  a  prayer-meeting,  and  from 
that  day  to  this,  the  happiest,  brightest,  hopefulest, 
meetings  of  the  Church  have  been  the  prayer-meetings.  The 
attendance  has  frequently  been  limited  only  by  the  size  of  the 
room.  More  than  thirty  per  cent  of  the  membership  roll,  the 
working,  praying,  giving,  "planning-and-doing"  force  of  the 
Church  is  there,  and  "there"  for  some  purpose. 

The  members  sometimes  tell  the  Pastor  what  they  like  to 
talk  or  pray  or  sing  about  at  their  meetings  and  so  suggest  the 
prayer-meeting  topic.  Consequently  we  do  not  make  slavish 
use  of  any  list  of  prepared  topics  for  the  year.  No  group  of 
men,  however  wise  and  consecrated,  can  provide  timely  spirit 
ual  food  for  the  daily  needs  of  a  church,  two  or  three  thousand 
miles  and  twelve  months  away.  Temple  Church,  in  common 
with  many  millions  of  American  people,  just  now  is  just  a 
little  bit  shy  about  using  "canned  goods".  We  think  the 
date  of  canning  should  be  plainly  printed  on  the  labels. 

We  have  always  spoken  of  the  prayer-meetings  as  the 
"Home  Gatherings".  It  is  the  home  meeting  of  the  church. 
It  is  the  "upper  room"  where  the  disciples  meet  with  the 
Master.  No  preaching  is  permitted  in  the  prayer-meeting. 
On  Sunday  the  Preacher  has  everything  his  own  way;  he 
preaches  what  he  will  and  as  he  will,  and  the  people  have  to 
listen  without  protest  or  interruption — but  the  prayer-meeting 
—that  belongs  to  the  Church.  There  the  Pastor  is  just  as 
lovingly  welcome  as  any  other  member  of  the  Church,  but 
there  the  Preacher  has  no  place.  The  oft-used  expression, 
"Whatever  is  on  your  heart,  brethren,"  is  literally  responded 
to  here.  Sometimes  it  is  an  incident  of  the  day  in  business  or 

277 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

shop  or  home — sometimes  it  is  a  letter  from  an  absent  member, 
for  this  habit  of  writing  to  "the  family "  by  those  temporarily 
away  has  been  much  encouraged  by  the  Pastor  when  absent 
on  his  own  vacations — sometimes  the  singing  of  a  solo  that 
gives  expression  to  the  soul  as  only  song  can  do. 

Sometimes  they  talk  of  "Mother  and  her  Hymns",  some 
times  of  "Father  and  his  Bible  chapters",  "Pastors  I  have 
loved",  "What  if  women  kept  silent  in  the  Church",  "The 
Best  Book  in  the  Best  Case",  "The  Fourth  Man  in  the  Fur 
nace",  as  well  as  the  more  familiar  topics.  Not  only  is  the 
spiritual  life  quickened,  but  as  strangers  invariably  remark, 
there  is  a  warmth  and  cordiality  that  makes  them  want  to 
come  again.  And  they  come  again  and  soon  become  "of  us". 

This  prayer-meeting  habit  is  carried  into  the  business  meet 
ings.  Once  in  three  months  comes  the  regular  quarterly  busi 
ness  meeting  of  the  church.  The  attendance  is  perhaps  a  little 
larger  than  at  our  regular  prayer-meetings — men,  women,  and 
our  "blessed  young  people"  attending  in  the  usual  proportions. 
There  is  a  hymn,  a  portion  of  scripture,  a  prayer,  and  then  "the 
business  of  the  King's  House". 

Through  all  the  business  runs  a  deep,  clear  current  of  spirit 
uality.  Occasionally  someone  will  break  out  with  an  appro 
priate  hymn  at  the  close  of  a  report.  When  the  meeting  is 
closed  with  prayer  there  is  the  feeling  that  we  have  had  another 
good  "prayer-meeting".  The  church  has  been  lifted  up, 
strengthened,  helped.  And  this  is  one  great  reason — it  is 
"the"  reason,  why  the  records  of  our  business  meetings  are 
illuminated  with  the  repetition  of  "Carried  unanimously". 
The  spirit  of  harmony  born  in  the  prayer-meeting  makes  it 
easy  and  natural  for  the  people  to  "keep  the  unity  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace"  in  business  deliberations. 

He  sometimes  called  the  prayer-meeting  the  engine- 
room  of  the  church  and  an  extract  is  given  from  one  of 
his  sermons  not  only  elaborating  this  analogy,  but 
because  it  illustrates  his  correctness  in  figures  of  speech 
and  use  of  terms  foreign  to  his  real  subject  and  his 
beauty  of  expression  concerning  common  things  and 
his  picturesqueness  of  expression: 
278 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

On  this  pleasant  Sabbath  morning,  chafing  at  the  great 
cables,  swinging  slowly  with  the  turning  tide,  rocking  with  the 
swells  that  roll  in  from  the  restless  Atlantic,  the  greatest  fleet 
that  ever  assembled  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  is  awaiting  for 
a  word  from  the  President  of  the  United  States,  which  will 
come  tomorrow;  waiting  for  a  signal  that  will  break  out  from 
the  masthead  of  the  flagship  in  an  eloquent  flame  of  color, 
speaking  the  picturesque  language  of  sailors. 

Answering  signals  will  flash  out  from  every  battleship, 
cruiser  and  torpedo  boat.  Cannon  from  casemate  and  barbette 
of  the  fort  will  thunder  "  Godspeed ",  and  rapid-fire  guns  will 
answer  "Good-by".  Cheers  from  the  multitudes  on  the  shore; 
cheers  from  the  sailors  and  bluejackets  on  the  ships  will  voice 
the  pride  of  a  mighty  nation.  The  fighting  greyhounds  of  the 
sea  will  strain  at  their  leashes,  eager  for  the  start  on  the  long, 
long  race  through  sun  and  calm,  and  night  and  storm.  Well, 
the  thundering  guns,  the  shrill  screaming  of  whistles,  the  cheers 
of  the  crowds,  the  fluttering  signal  flags  won't  start  them. 

Down  out  of  sight  of  all  the  happy  throngs  and  the  gay 
bunting;  away  from  the  thrill  and  the  excitement  and  the  gala- 
day  rainbow  of  color;  down  below  the  water  line;  down  in  the 
throbbing  heart  of  each  ship,  " among  the  purring  dynamos" 
where  day  and  night  are  alike  all  the  year  round;  down  in  each 
engine-room  a  man  will  open  a  great  valve.  And  when  he, 
out  of  sight  and  out  of  thought  of  the  cheering  multitude,  has 
done  this,  the  pent-up  steam,  screaming  its  impatience  from 
every  tiny  vent,  will  fill  the  lungs  of  the  ship.  The  power  will 
be  on,  and  then  the  ships  will  move. 

Still  deeper  down  are  the  bravest  fighters  on  the  ship — the 
stokers  working  before  the  hot,  devouring  mouths  of  the  roaring 
furnaces,  with  never  a  shout  to  cheer  and  nothing  to  inspire 
them — only  duty,  white-robed  and  spotless  as  an  angel  of  God, 
standing  in  the  black  grime  of  the  stoke  hole,  and  smiling 
gloriously  into  the  faces  of  the  men  at  their  fiery  posts. 

The  power  of  the  ship  of  the  church — it's  not  on  the  decks; 
it's  down  in  the  engine-room;  it's  behind  the  closed  doors  of 
the  inner  chamber;  it's  in  the  prayer-meeting  room.  And  in 
Baptist  churches  the  engine-room  is  down  below  the  water  line. 
What  power  and  love  and  mystery  of  grace  and  might  throb  in 
the  engine-room!  It  is  pleasant  and  joyous  here  on  Sunday. 

279 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

To  me,  there  is  religion  and  there  is  worship  in  the  beauty  of 
the  room  itself.  I  love  the  grace  and  the  artistic  science  in 
the  sweep  of  the  galleries;  in  the  loftiness  of  the  dome,  the 
lines  of  the  room,  the  soft,  pleasant  color  scheme  that  rests 
the  eyes;  the  cathedral  setting  of  the  choir.  My  heart  keeps 
time  to  the  music  of  the  organ,  and  throbs  in  sympathy,  and 
feels  the  worshipful  uplift  of  the  great  voice  of  praise  when  the 
congregation  sings.  I  have  never  worshiped  in  a  church  that 
more  tenderly  awakened  my  religious  nature.  It  is  a  beautiful 
place  to  come  to  on  Sunday. 

But  all  this  is  the  deck  of  the  ship.  It's  useful,  nay,  it's 
indispensable.  It's  a  battleship — one  of  the  biggest  in  the 
fleet.  Away  up  there,  see  our  fighting  tops — with  Leonard 
Merrill  in  command.  Here  are  the  conning  towers,  whence 
Mr.  Fowler  and  his  ushers  look  out  over  all  the  decks.  Here 
sits  the  bandmaster  and  here  is  the  band. 

All  over  the  ship,  every  man  at  his  post,  are  the  sailors — 
the  fighters  of  the  ship,  true-blue  every  one  of  them — deep- 
water  Baptists.  The  Bible  is  our  compass;  the  pulpit  is  the 
figurehead,  and  the  preacher  is  the  admiral.  It's  all  in  the  plan 
of  the  ship.  And  when  it  is  decked  out  in  Sunday  trim  it  all 
looks  beautiful  and  good. 

And  it  is  good,  and  it  is  useful;  but  this  Sunday  service, 
with  all  its  grace  and  beauty  of  form  and  color  and  music,  isn't 
what  makes  the  ship  go.  Ah,  my  children,  the  engine-room  is 
the  prayer-meeting.  It's  at  the  family  altar;  it's  in  your  daily 
Bible  reading;  it's  in  your  daily  prayers;  it's  in  your  commun 
ion  with  God.  Stop  the  prayer-meeting  for  two  weeks,  and 
these  great  congregations  would  begin  to  fall  off.  Stop  it  for 
a  month,  and  the  church  members  would  begin  to  quit  coming 
to  church. 

"The  gift  of  prayer"  was  one  of  Mr.  Burdette's 
richest  blessings.  He  was  able  utterly  to  forget  self, 
except  for  common  human  frailties  and  pleading 
necessities,  and  seemingly  to  ignore  the  public 
environment  when  taking  to  God  the  petition  of  the 
people.  He  prayed  with  such  an  exact  understanding 
of  all  they  would  have  him  ask  for  and  with  such  an 
280 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

intimate  heart  relation  with  the  Loving  Father  that 
each  one,  hearing  the  prayer,  felt  sure  it  was  made  for 
them  individually  and  would  be  answered  to  them. 

He  preferred  always  to  offer  prayer  himself  before 
his  sermon.  Thus  he  "whetted  his  own  scythe".  His 
usual  form  was  an  ascription  of  praise,  thanksgiving 
for  blessings  received  and  confession.  Then  supplica 
tions  were  offered  with  such  great  tenderness,  rever 
ence  and  earnestness  that  the  congregation  was  uncon 
sciously  led  into  prayer  for  itself.  As  one  pastor  wrote 
of  Mr.  Burdette,  in  reference  to  a  service  in  his  pulpit: 

Prayers  were  offered  for  the  workingmen,  the  weary  housewife — 
the  merchant,  the  children  who  had  great  little  burdens,  the 
faithful  nurse  with  her  long  vigil  by  the  sick-bed  of  our  loved 
ones — it  was  an  appeal  that  the  day  might  help  all  to  come 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Father's  care  and  love.  The  prayer 
was  so  helpful,  uplifting  and  inspiring  that  it  would  need  quite 
a  dull  sermon  to  bring  the  spirit  down  from  the  heights  of 
devotion  to  which  it  had  risen. 

Many  a  person  has  told  me  they  could  go  to  church  service 
and  be  satisfied  if  they  listened  only  to  the  prayer.  The 
simplicity,  the  directness,  the  perfect  faith  of  the  utterance 
carried  comfort,  assurance  and  power. 

A  brief  petition,  found  on  a  scrap  of  paper  in  his 
desk,  is  here  quoted: 

Often  as  we  would  ask  Thee  for  new  blessing,  our  thankful 
ness  for  the  mercies  received  crowd  into  our  hearts  and  set 
aside  the  new  petitions.  For  Thou  dost  remember  our  wants 
before  we  can  speak  them;  Thou  knowest  our  needs  before  we 
can  tell  them.  Thou  dost  bring  for  us  water  in  the  wilderness 
and  fruits  in  the  desert,  Thou  givest  honey  out  of  the  rock  and 
rainest  manna  from  the  heavens.  Thou  art  our  Heavenly 
Father  and  we  thank  Thee  for  our  daily  food,  which  faileth  not. 

An  offertory  prayer  often  asked  for,  could  be  repro 
duced  in  his  own  handwriting: 

God  of  all  bounty — All  things  are  Thine,  and  of  Thine  own 

281 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

free  gifts  to  us,  we  have  brought  our  offerings  to  the  altar  of  Thy 
righteousness.  Now  bless  Thou  abundantly  the  offerings  of 
the  rich,  who  have  given  much.  Bless  yet  more  abundantly 
the  offerings  of  the  poor,  who  out  of  their  poverty  have  given 
yet  more.  And  oh,  will  Thou  bless  most  lovingly  and  abund 
antly  of  all,  the  gifts  of  the  very  poor,  who  in  their  penury 
have  brought  Thee  all  they  have — their  love  and  their  prayers, 
For  Jesus  sake. 

Mr.  Burdette  may  have  been  thought  by  church 
people  as  a  "prayer-meeting  specialist",  but  he  him 
self  specialized  in  getting  away  from  the  stereotyped 
forms  of  the  church  that  were  only  forms.  He  con 
sidered  them  "man-made"  and  therefore,  he  had  as 
good  a  right  to  make  his  own  as  they  had  to  make  them 
for  him.  In  the  pulpit  and  out  of  the  pulpit  his  saving 
sense  of  the  dramatic,  his  delicate  appreciation  of  what 
was  reverent  and  what  was  really  irreverent,  enabled 
him  to  "hew  close  to  the  line"  without  shocking  or 
losing  the  essence  of  reverence. 

The  responsive  readings  of  each  church  service  were 
never  a  formal  chapter,  but  selected  passages  of  scrip 
ture  blended  together  on  some  special  topic  and  leading, 
though  the  congregation  did  not  often  analyze  why,  to 
an  understanding  of  the  topic  he  would  develop.  With 
all  his  familiarity  with  the  Bible  and  marvelous  memory 
of  location  of  chapter  and  verse,  this  often  occupied  as 
much  time  in  preparation  as  the  sermon,  but  it  pre 
pared  the  soil  for  the  "Word"  in  a  manner  to  which  a 
less  industrious  or  painstaking  pastor  would  not  have 
resorted. 

While  his  imagination  and  nimbleness  of  mind 
especially  expressed  itself  in  the  titles  he  gave  his 
newspaper  articles,  lectures  and  talks,  he  never  de 
tracted  from  the  beauty,  dignity  and  reverence  of  a 
scripture  text  by  startling  headlines  or  topics  of  his 
282 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

sermons.     He  never  made  commonplace  the  "office  of 
his  high  calling  to  preach  the  gospel/' 


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FACSIMILE  OF  OFFERTORY  PRAYER  BY  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE,  PUBLISHED 
IN  THE  PACIFIC  BAPTIST,  JUNE  18,  1908. 


283 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

And  the  same  ethical  psychology  explained  his 
natural  humor  in  a  sermon,  according  to  his  reply  to 
London  interviewers  who  propounded  the  usual  ques 
tion,  "Do  you  consider  humor  out  of  place  in  the 
pulpit?" 

You  might  as  well  say  the  pulpit  is  not  the  place  for  pathos. 
Anyway,  I  would  rather  make  ten  men  laugh  than  one  man  cry. 
We  are  not  told  whether  there  will  be  any  laughter  in  Heaven, 
but  we  are  told  there  will  be  no  crying  there. 

No  administration  that  he  performed  for  the  church 
was  more  impressive  than  the  ordinance  of  baptism, 
though  he  used  a  form  that  was  particularly  his  own. 
On  one  occasion  the  pastor  baptized  twenty-three  can 
didates,  ranging  in  age  from  nine  years  to  eighty-three, 
so  filling  him  with  a  spiritual  sense  of  gratitude  for  this 
crowning  of  his  efforts  that  he  seemed  for  the  moment 
to  be  "walking  apart  from  this  world".  As  this  com 
pany  of  friends,  brothers  and  sisters,  husband  and  wife, 
father  and  grandfather  stepped  down  into  the  waters 
of  the  baptistry,  each  bearing  a  spray  of  Easter  lilies, 
and  came  up  out  of  the  waters  still  bearing  this  symbol 
of  purity,  the  Pastor,  with  radiant  face,  lifted  his  hands 
in  prayer  and  said,  "Lord,  we  have  done  as  Thou  hast 
directed  and  yet  there  is  room".  So  reverentially 
impressive  was  this  in  all  its  details,  many  were  the 
eyes  wet  with  tears. 

Mr.  Burdette  introduced  a  service  entirely  unique 
in  the  history  of  the  Baptist  denomination,  which  in  a 
sense  corresponded  to  the  "christenings"  of  other 
churches.  This  was  known  as  "The  Name  Service" 
and  grew  out  of  his  deep-seated  belief  that  children 
should  not  be  left  to  the  evils  of  life  until  parents  or 
child  came  to  the  mature  judgment  that  having  sinned 
it  was  time  to  repent.  He  felt  that  a  far  greater  thing 
284 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH   WORK 

was  to  keep  them  from  the  sin  of  the  world  by  knowing 
"no  other  way"  than  righteousness  and  beautiful 
living. 

The  form  used  at  the  christening  of  his  own  little 
granddaughter  was  and  is  used  with  variations  for  other 
children: 

Lo,  children  are  an  heritage  of  the  Lord. 

As  arrows  in  the  hand  of  a  mighty  man,  so  are  the  children 
of  the  youth. 

And  Hannah  brought  her  son  unto  the  house  of  Jehovah 
in  Shiloh;  and  the  child  was  young.  And  she  said,  "For  this 
child  I  prayed;  and  Jehovah  hath  given  me  my  petition  which 
I  asked  of  Him;  therefore  also  I  have  granted  him  to  Jehovah; 
as  long  as  he  liveth  he  shall  be  lent  to  the  Lord." 

And  when  the  days  of  their  purification  according  to  the 
law  of  Moses  were  fulfilled,  they  brought  the  child  Jesus  up  to 
Jerusalem,  to  present  him  to  the  Lord,  and  to  offer  the  sacrifice 
according  to  that  which  is  said  in  the  law  of  the  Lord,  a  pair 
of  turtle  doves  or  two  young  pigeons. 

And  Jehovah  said,  "  I  will  establish  my  covenant  between 
me  and  thee  and  thy  children  after  thee  in  all  their  generations, 
for  an  everlasting  covenant  to  be  a  God  unto  thee  and  unto 
thy  children". 

Then  there  were  brought  unto  Jesus  little  children  that 
he  should  lay  his  hands  on  them  and  pray;  and  the  disciples 
rebuked  them.  But  when  Jesus  saw  it,  he  was  moved  with 
indignation,  and  said  unto  them,  "Suffer  the  little  children  to 
come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom 
of  God.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  whosoever  shall  not  receive 
the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  he  shall  in  no  wise  enter 
therein." 

And  he  took  them  in  his  arms  and  blessed  them,  laying 
his  hands  upon  them. 

The  minister:  "Do  you,  father  and  mother,  accept  for 
yourselves  and  for  this  little  one,  the  covenant  of  God,  desiring 
earnestly  that  its  blessings  may  rest  upon  your  little  child? 
And  in  this  prayer  do  you  lovingly  and  willingly  consecrate 
your  little  one  to  God  the  Father?" 

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ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

The  parents:  "We  do." 

To  the  god-father:  "  Do  you,  called  to  be  god-father  to  the 
little  one,  promise  to  be  to  her  a  true  friend,  a  faithful  counsellor 
and  a  loving  protector,  through  all  her  years  of  childhood  and 
youth?" 

The  god-father:  "I  do." 

To  the  parents:   "What  name  have  you  given  this  child?" 

The  parents:   " Clara  Bradley." 

Our  dear  Heavenly  Father,  and  Thou,  Oh  Jesus  of  Bethle 
hem,  lover  and  saviour  of  little  children,  into  Thy  keeping  of 
love  and  truth  and  wisdom  we  commend  this  dear  and  blessed 
little  one.  We  lay  her  in  Thy  arms  for  Thy  blessing  and  favor, 
for  the  blessing  which  Thou  didst  whisper  above  the  little  ones 
in  Jerusalem.  Lead  her  in  all  the  increasing  years,  in  paths  of 
righteous,  in  safe  and  pleasant  ways  of  peace.  Keep  the 
precious  soul  from  sin  and  evil  of  the  world.  With  coming 
years  of  knowledge  and  discretion,  bring  her  into  the  fellowship 
of  the  church  of  God,  confessing  Christ  and  following  Him  in 
the  waters  of  the  baptism  of  regeneration.  Be  Thou  her 
Heavenly  Father,  0  Lord  our  God,  be  Thou  her  loving  Elder 
Brother,  0  Jesus  our  Saviour,  and  bring  her  at  last  with  ever 
lasting  joy  into  the  glory  of  her  eternal  home. 

Many  expressions  in  the  usual  marriage  ceremony 
did  not  appeal  to  him.  He  created  a  form  of  ceremony 
that  all  brides  "just  loved"  and  assembled  friends 
approved  and  admired,  in  which  he  gave  play  to  his 
purest  imagination  and  tenderest  expressions.  He 
omitted  from  the  usual  ceremony  the  expression  "in 
sickness  and  in  health",  saying  to  "love  her,  comfort 
her,  honor  and  keep  her"  covered  the  conditions  with 
out  cumbering  the  promise.  He  never  asked  the  bride 
to  promise  to  "obey  him  and  serve  him",  that  being 
obsolete.  Nor  did  he  require  the  man  to  say  "with  all 
my  worldly  goods  I  thee  endow",  because  he  felt  that 
did  not  matter  if  he  endowed  her  with  the  higher  and 
finer  things  of  his  manly  life  that  would  follow.  "As 

286 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

Isaac  and  Rebekah  lived  faithfully  together",  he  also 
omitted,  as  he  interpreted  the  biblical  history,  to  record 
the  fact  that  "she  was  not  a  faithful  wife,  but  a  lying, 
nagging  woman  ".  The  ceremony  used  at  the  marriage 
of  his  own  step-son  is  treasured  by  more  than  the  im 
mediate  interested  parties  and  shows  with  what  wealth 
of  expression  he  adorned  this  sacred  sacrament. 

The  long  years  on  the  lecture  platform  and  the  large 
contact  with  the  newspaper  public  had  tethered  to 
Mr.  Burdette,  by  cords  that  time  and  place  left  un 
broken,  large  groups  of  people,  not  only  from  every 
State  in  the  Union,  but  wherever  English-speaking 
people  lived  throughout  the  world.  This  drew  a  very 
cosmopolitan  congregation  and  church  membership. 
His  remarkable  memory  and  surprising  versatility  were 
the  marvel  of  all  those  who  heard  him,  as  he  passed 
down  a  long  line  of  new  members  extending  the  right 
hand  of  fellowship  with  a  personal  word  of  welcome  to 
each,  adapted  only  to  that  individual. 

Among  his  papers  is  a  sheet  on  which  he  had 
written: 

Right  Hand  of  Fellowship. 

Welcome  to  Service. 

Comfort.     (One  who  has  sorrowed.) 

Joy  of  Conflict.     (One  with  peculiar  temptations.) 

Messenger,  swift-footed.     (Young  man.) 

Service  of  singing.     (Woman  member  of  Choir.) 

Head  of  the  House;  its  Priest  indeed.     (Father.) 

Joy. 

A  Three-fold  cord.     (One  of  a  family  of  three.) 

Service  of  Counsel.     (Professional  man.) 

Welcome  to  the  green  pastures  of  refreshing  grace. 

(A  sweet-faced  old  lady.) 
Rest  that  follows  toil.     (Old  Man.) 
The  strength  and  glory  of  the  Promises. 

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ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  twenty-four  others  which  were  evidently  outlined 
for  a  morning  when  thirty-five  new  members  were  taken 
into  the  church. 

This  cosmopolitan  congregation  was  also  due  to 
two  other  facts  which  Mr.  Burdette  inspired,  that  of 
the  down-town  church  and  his  catholicity  of  invitation. 
When  Temple  Church  was  first  organized  he  issued  the 
following  invitation  in  card  form  and  had  it  widely 
distributed: 

THE  TEMPLE  BAPTIST  CHURCH 

Who  are  Invited? 
Who  are  Wanted? 

— all  of  the  following: 

RAILROAD  MEN.  Presidents,  superintendents,  managers, 
clerks,  engineers,  conductors,  motormen,  car  cleaners,  repairers, 
electricians,  and  the  men  that  use  the  shovel  and  the  pick. 

NEWSPAPER  MEN.  Publishers,  editors,  managers,  solici 
tors,  compositors,  pressmen,  stereotypers,  mailers,  bookkeepers, 
office  boys  and  newsboys. 

MERCHANTS.  Proprietors,  clerks,  bookkeepers,  stenog 
raphers,  salesmen,  saleswomen,  cash  and  bundle  boys. 

CAPITALISTS.  The  banker,  real  estate  men,  all  mining 
men. 

THE  JUDGE,  attorneys  and  clerks. 

THE  ARCHITECT.  Contractors,  carpenters,  brick  masons, 
apprentices,  painters,  plumbers,  gas  fitters. 

THE  RESTAURANTERS,  the  waiter,  the  chef,  the  bell  boy, 
the  porter,  the  housekeeper,  the  matron,  messenger,  the  hair 
dresser,  bootblacks,  bakers,  the  laundress,  the  hostler,  the 
upholsterer. 

SALOON  PROPRIETORS  are  most  cordially  invited.  Please 
come  and  bring  your  customers. 

STUDENTS  AND  SCHOLARS.  Young  and  old,  rich  and  poor, 
one  and  all. 

"The  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together, 
and  the  Lord  is  the  Maker  of  them  all." 

— Prov.  22:2. 
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CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT   CHURCH  WORK 

To  the  Stranger  and  the  Visitor,  and  especially  to  the  men 
and  women  of  that  world-wide  confraternity  that  amuses,  and 
teaches,  and  encourages  from  stage  and  rostrum,  whose  restless 
year  knows  three  hundred  stopping  places  and  no  home — "A 
Hundred  Thousand  Welcomes!"  Make  the  Temple  your 
Church  Home  while  you  sojourn  in  Los  Angeles. 

This  was  signed  by  the  replica  of  his  own  signature, 
thus  giving  it  a  more  personal  touch.  It  was  the  art  of 
this  personal  appeal  in  everything  he  did  which  was 
part  of  his  power. 

In  no  way  did  he  give  greater  emphasis  to  this 
personal  touch  than  in  the  preparation  of  the  Temple- 
Herald,  the  weekly  calendar  that  awaited  the  great 
congregation  each  Sabbath  and  which  imparted  one 
of  the  most  important  and  helpful  silent  services  to 
those  who  read  with  their  soul  as  well  as  their  eyes. 
He  knew  so  well  the  appeal  of  the  artistic  and  dra 
matic  touch,  as  well  as  the  detailed  recognition  of  per 
sonal  groups  outside  of  the  church. 

The  calendar  for  one  Decoration  Day  carried  two 
items  of  information: 

The  sword  upon  the  pulpit  was  carried  at  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago.  It  is  a  genuine 
Toledo  blade. 

The  members  of  the  City  police  force  who  are  with  us  today 
are  representatives  of  the  armies  of  the  Union,  the  Confederacy, 
the  Spanish-American  war,  and  of  the  war  in  the  Philippines. 

He  gave  as  much  time  and  thought  to  the  prepara 
tion  of  the  Herald  as  to  the  writing  of  the  sermons  and 
the  acknowledgment  of  its  value  was  found  in  the  fact 
that  it  had  regular  paid  subscriptions  from  people  in 
the  east,  this  fund  going  to  the  work  of  the  church. 
His  habit  was  to  choose  a  text  and  a  sermon  topic; 
then  to  carefully  select  a  cut  for  the  front  page  which 
19  289 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

should  illustrate  the  topic  of  the  sermon,  and  then 
write  a  poem  to  give  expression  to  the  cut. 

This  last  was  undertaken  in  response  to  my  sugges 
tion.  He  asked  me  once  what  I  wanted  for  Christmas 
and  I  replied  "a  poem  each  week  for  the  calendar", 
knowing  through  the  years  how  much  of  helpfulness, 
tenderness  and  poetic  expression  could  flow  from  his 
pen  when  affection  and  sentiment  moved  upon  his 
spirit.  These  poems  were  afterward  gathered  into  a 
book  entitled,  "Silver  Trumpets". 

His  dedication  of  the  little  volume  indicates  the 
spirit  of  the  lines  that  follow: 

And  Jehovah  spake  unto  Moses,  saying,  Make  thee  two 
trumpets  of  silver;  of  beaten  work  shalt  thou  make  them;  and 
thou  shalt  use  them  for  the  calling  of  the  congregation,  and  for 
the  journeying  of  the  camps.  And  when  they  shall  blow  them, 
all  the  congregation  shall  gather  themselves  unto  thee  at  the 
door  of  the  tent  of  the  meeting. 

The  echoes  of  the  Silver  Trumpets  are  very  dear  to  the 
Pastor  who  sounded  the  calls  in  the  years  from  1903  to  1909, 
for  they  are  the  voices  of  the  worshippers  who  sang  the  songs  of 
Zion  in  the  Tent  of  the  Meeting,  and  chanted  the  marching 
music  of  the  Church  along  the  way  of  Pilgrimage.  And  he 
hopes  they  may  once  more  sound  pleasantly  to  the  past  and 
the  present  mighty  Congregations  of  the  Temple,  which  on  the 
recurring  Sabbath  days  still  throng  the  House  beyond  its  doors, 
even  while  their  uncounted  numbers  are  scattered  in  long 
skirmish  lines  and  serried  columns  from  the  Sunrise  to  the 
Sunset. 

He  likewise  carefully  selected  the  pictures  in  his 
study  and  changed  them  from  time  to  time,  that  they 
might  preach  a  sermon  to  all  who  entered  there. 

And  a  later  article,  "The  Pew  as  Seen  from  the 
Pulpit",  is  a  rich  commentary  on  the  manners  of  a 
congregation,  "played  up"  in  his  choicest  style. 
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CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT  CHURCH  WORK 

Speaking  of  mannerisms,   Mr.   Burdette  was  heard 
repeatedly  to  say: 

I  have  never  understood  why  the  dear  Lord  thought  I 
ought  to  make  my  way  through  life,  making  a  living  and  doing 
my  work,  standing  before  the  public,  talking,  when  I  hadn't 
the  first  qualification  for  it.  I  am  just  a  little  bent-legged 
fellow  with  no  voice  or  presence,  little  hair  and  few  teeth. 

He  failed  to  acknowledge  that  personality  is 
supreme,  that  the  merry  heart  of  him  drew  all  men, 
that  his  understanding  of  the  human  heart  in  all  its 
joys  and  sorrows  was  the  key  that  unlocked  the  heart 
of  the  world  to  him,  that  his  never-failing  faith  in  man 
kind  and  God  gave  him  more  than  mere  human  power. 
And  men  loved  him.  Women  loved  him,  too,  for 
women  are  given  to  a  genuine  affection  for  their  pastor, 
as  well  as  a  sentimental  adoration  of  the  "dear  pastor". 
But  he  was  a  man's  man  and  they  expressed  an  affection 
for  him  that  was  unusual  as  between  men.  Men  liked 
his  simple,  straightforward  preaching,  for  he  always 
felt  that  it  was  not  a  theological  thesis,  nor  a  literary 
production  they  wanted,  but  the  simple  story  of  the 
gospel,  and  as  best  evidence  of  the  truth  of  this  was  a 
count  made  of  rows  of  the  congregation  taken  Sunday 
after  Sunday,  morning  and  evening,  and  51  per  cent 
plus  of  men  in  attendance. 

An  editor  in  an  Eastern  paper  commenting  upon 
Mr.  Burdette's  pastorate  and  the  frequent  question, 
"Why  do  not  more  men  go  to  church?"  said: 

In  an  overwhelming  percentage  of  cases  the  environment 
of  an  education  for  the  ministry  unfits  a  man  for  the  calling  for 
which  he  believes  himself  to  be  preparing.  It  is  different  with 
the  Rev.  Burdette.  He  spent  more  than  twenty  years  in  the 
roil  and  ruction  of  newspaper  offices,  learning  to  know  humanity 

291 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

not  as  it  ought  to  be,  or  as  it  would  like  to  be,  or  as  the  church 
men  would  like  to  believe  it,  but  as  it  is.  Better  yet,  most  of 
that  period  was  lived  in  the  lesser  towns,  where  the  editor 
suffers  even  less  from  the  aloofness  that  is  the  bane  of  the  priest 
hood  than  does  his  contemporary  in  a  large  city. 

He  spent  other  years  on  the  road,  lecturing  and  meeting 
and  mingling  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  man  and  woman 
kind.  He  knows  us;  he  can  talk  to  us;  he  can  understand  us 
and  we  can  understand  him.  He  speaks  the  language  of  our 
tribe,  and  neither  his  mental  processes  nor  his  spiritual  emotions 
are  too  rarefied  to  appeal  to  us.  The  wit  and  wisdom,  the  ready 
sympathy  and  fine  humanity  that  delighted  and  improved  us 
in  his  humorous  writing  and  in  his  lay  addresses  can  not  fail 
to  shine  through  his  pulpit  efforts.  It  ought  to  be  worth  while 
to  sit  under  his  preaching.  Even  to  read  his  sermons  would 
be  a  privilege. 

It  is  a  tribute  to  Mr.  Burdette's  breadth  of  spirit 
that  as  a  preacher,  thinker,  brother  of  men,  he  treasured 
the  memory  of  a  friendship  begun  with  Robert  J.  Inger- 
soll  during  his  boyhood.  Both  were  of  the  type  of 
master-mind,  though  the  one  was  mature  when  the 
other  was  beginning  his  career.  When  Mr.  Ingersoll 
died,  Mr.  Burdette,  then  pastor  of  the  Pasadena  Pres 
byterian  Church,  had  no  hesitancy  in  paying  a  tribute 
to  Mr.  Ingersoll  from  that  pulpit: 

When,  but  a  short  day  or  two  ago  Robert  G.  Ingersoll 
passed  beyond  the  confines  of  this  life  into  the  world  that  sets 
this  one  right,  there  stepped  from  the  stage  of  earthly  activities 
the  most  brilliantly  eloquent  orator  of  his  nation.  God  give 
him  peace.  .  .  . 

I  was  a  boy  of  fourteen  when  first  I  knew  this  brilliant  man, 
as  a  schoolboy  might  know  a  young  lawyer,  eleven  years  his 
senior.  As  I  grew  to  manhood,  our  lives  came  closer  together; 
I  was  a  writer  on  a  newspaper,  he  a  powerful  and  prominent 
politician  of  the  same  party.  Those  of  us  who  knew  him  best 
remember  him  now  most  tenderly,  with  all  gentleness  in  our 

292 


CALIFORNIA— PERMANENT  CHURCH  WORK 

sorrow.     The  head  of  gold,  the  heart  of  silver — alas,  the  feet 
of  human  clay — we  knew  so  well. 

We  knew  the  generous  heart,  the  open  hand,  the  loving 
nature.  When  my  early  ambitions  began  to  ripen  into  purposes, 
I  talked  with  him  about  them.  How  manly,  how  honest,  how 
helpful  were  his  suggestions  and  counsel,  so  gladly  and  freely 
given — a  client  waiting  in  the  ante-room  while  this  great  lawyer 
advised  and  encouraged  an  ambitious  boy  on  the  threshold  of 
journalism. 

They  clung  to  him  lovingly,  the  Christian  people  of  Peoria 
who  were  his  friends.  In  more  than  one  Christian  family  have 
I  heard  the  prayers  at  the  family  altar  go  up  to  the  throne  of 
grace  for  him,  that  he  might  give  to  God  the  noblest  uses  of 
the  splendid  powers  God  had  given  him.  The  man's  life  in 
his  old  home  was  circled  by  prayers. 

The  great  sorrow  of  it  all  is  that  he  should  have  preached 
unbelief,  distrust;  that  he  should  have  torn  down  a  sweet  hope, 
a  beautiful  faith,  when  he  had  nothing  to  give  in  its  place. 
That  he  should  have  taught  doubt.  Here  and  there,  perhaps, 
he  shook  some  strong  faith  in  a  stalwart  Christian;  here  and 
again,  it  may  be,  he  quenched,  or  seemed  to  utterly  quench, 
the  light  of  faith  in  some  " little  one"  of  Christ's  whose  wavering 
faith  was  already  weak.  God  pity  us  all!  Is  your  life,  is  mine, 
always  a  gospel  of  faith  and  trust  and  joyous  hope?  Have  we 
never  by  word  or  act,  by  faulty  life,  by  inconsistent  walk 
awakened  in  some  questioning  soul  new  and  multiplied  doubts? 

He  has  gone  beyond  the  reach  of  our  judgment,  beyond 
the  weight  of  our  censure,  the  sweetness  of  our  praise.  He 
stands  where,  soon  or  late,  in  a  few  days  or  in  many  years, 
you  and  I  must  stand.  And  where  we  must  stand  to  be  judged, 
just  as  he  is  judged— at  the  bar  of  God,  not  the  tribunal  of  men. 
Some  good  there  was  he  did ;  some  evil.  When  we  stand  where 
he  now  stands,  when  the  All-seeing  eye  looks  upon  the  naked 
soul,  yours  and  mine,  will  God  see  no  stain  of  evil  in  our  lives? 
"If  thou,  Lord,  shouldst  mark  iniquities,  0  Lord,  who  shall 
stand?" 

His  tolerance  was  voiced  in  a  poem  he  wrote  con 
cerning  the  various  mental  attitudes  people  took  toward 
prayer,  the  last  stanza  reading: 

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ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Father  give  each  his  answer, 

Each  in  his  kindred  way: 
Adapt  Thy  light  to  his  form  of  night 

And  grant  him  his  needed  day. 

His  summing  up  of  the  worth-whileness  of  preaching 
the  gospel  was  set  down  in  his  reply  to  a  preacher  friend 
who  had  been  somewhat  discouraged  and  who  asked 
his  advice  about  returning  to  literature: 

Don't  you  be  in  a  hurry  to  abandon  the  greatest,  highest, 
noblest  calling  on  earth  for  anything  else.  "Literature"  is 
dust  under  the  feet  of  the  gospel. 


294 


CHAPTER  XI 
VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

THIS  permanent  church  work,  while  it  would 
have  required  all  the  energies  of  a  less  resource 
ful  and  physically  strong  man,  did  not  by  any 
means  absorb  all  his  energies,  for  his  fame  as  a 
public  speaker,  and  his  ready  response,  was  to  make 
constant  and  innumerable  demands  upon  him  for  his 
part  in  civic  life. 

Possibly  it  was  well  that  he  had  this  call  from  the 
more  current  events  to  spare  him  what  was  a  great 
strain  upon  him  in  the  purely  church  line  of  service, 
because  of  his  keen  sympathy.  He  was  so  well  known 
by  strangers  in  the  community,  he  was  so  loved  by  those 
who  had  felt  his  sympathy  that  there  was  a  large  dis 
proportionate  demand  upon  him  for  the  services  of  the 
dead,  and  while  he  rendered  them  freely  and  lovingly, 
they  drew  greatly  upon  him,  and  I  often  felt  that  had 
it  not  been  for  the  reaction  that  he  found  in  this  very 
civic  life,  the  seriousness  of  the  other  service  would  have 
robbed  him  earlier  of  his  humor  and  in  some  sense  of 
his  buoyant  spirit. 

To  undertake  to  enumerate  and  classify  the  demands 
made  upon  him  would  be  an  impossible  task,  but  they 
were  so  varied  that  they  became  interesting,  interesting 
because  of  the  various  types  of  people  who  felt  they  had 
equal  claim  upon  him. 

His  was  a  justifiable  pride  in  that  his  popularity  as  a 
lecturer  withstood  distance,  the  years,  and  changing 
attitude  of  the  public  mind  toward  this  form  of  enter 
tainment.  "The  Redpath  Lyceum  Bureau,  under  date 

295 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

of  April  25,  1907,  over  thirty  years  after  the  date  of 
Mr.  Burdette's  first  lecture,  wrote: 

The  matter  which  is  agitating  my  mind  at  present  is  whether 
or  not  you  would  care  to  accept  lecture  engagements.  If  you 
could  see  your  way  clear  to  accept  an  engagement  of  six  to 
ten  weeks,  with  six  lectures  per  week,  I  would  most  certainly 
be  delighted  to  entertain  a  proposition  from  you  on  this  basis. 
I  can  further  testify  and  solemnly  promise  to  pledge  and  other 
wise  assure  you  that  the  jump  will  not  be  over  an  average  of 
one  hundred  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  per  day  and  that 
there  will  be  no  necessity  of  cross-country  drives  in  a  blizzard 
with  the  mercury  twenty  degrees  below  zero,  as  in  the  olden  days. 

As  these  lectures  paid  $100  each,  the  six  weeks 
engagement  meant  $3600  and  the  ten  weeks'  engage 
ment,  $6000,  a  very  good  earning  capacity  for  one 
passing  the  sixty-third  birthday. 

Of  course  he  could  only  accept  such  lecture  engage 
ments  as  would  permit  him  to  return  to  his  Sunday 
service  and  not  interrupt  church  work,  but  he  was  in 
constant  demand  for  banquets,  being  a  famous  toast- 
master,  for  addresses  of  every  kind  and  description, 
including  educational,  political,  municipal,  social  and, 
of  course,  all  phases  of  church  work. 

In  the  course  of  his  long  lecture  career  he  received 
every  form  of  introduction,  from  the  sublime  to  the 
ridiculous,  and  many  were  the  smiles  he  had  over  the 
unconscious  humor  of  the  men  who  tried  to  introduce 
the  humorist  in  a  humorous  way,  but  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  treasured  introductions  he  ever  received 
was  that  given  in  these  later  years  by  President  James 
A.  B.  Scherer  of  Throop  College  of  Technology,  on  the 
occasion  of  his  lecture  in  Pasadena  on  "Rainbow 
Chasers ",  when  Dr.  Scherer  said: 

God  gave  him  wit.  Shining,  and  clean  and  keen,  his  shafts 
shoot  swift  at  shams,  follies  and  falsehoods.  For  these  he 
296 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

keeps  his  quiver  full  of  sharp  and  stinging  arrows;  his  shining 
wit. 

God  gave  him  humor.  His  Jovian  mirth  compels  the  fat 
round  earth  to  cosmic  glee — seismic  shocks  that  shake  the  terra 
firma  from  Watts  to  Burmah,  in  the  camaraderie  of  blithe 
hilarity. 

God  gave  him  fancy;  his  hawkeye  pierces  through  the  husk 
to  seed,  through  fact  to  truth;  his  eye  can  read  beauty  in  com 
monplace  places,  and  his  pen  becomes  a  brush. 

God  gave  him  grace;  those  smiling  lips  are  touched  with 
holy  fire;  he  knows  to  teach  the  lowly  to  aspire;  his  words 
have  spelt  to  multitudes  release  and  peace. 

God  gave  him  heart — warm  as  the  April  sunshine,  friendly 
as  rain,  mellow  as  winter  apples,  open,  and  plain. 

God  gives  him  to  us.  We  can  not  repay  the  debt  that  we 
owe  kindly  Heaven  for  our  own  Bob  Burdette. 

He  not  only  preached  the  Baccalaureate  sermons  in 
the  universities  of  the  Coast,  but  gave  the  commence 
ment  addresses  at  high  schools  and  the  various  educa 
tional  institutions  of  the  State. 

His  cleverness  as  an  after-dinner  speaker  and  as  a 
toastmaster  at  formal  and  informal  banquets  was 
known  far  and  wide,  and  few  were  the  functions  of  a 
public  character  in  Southern  California  that  he  was  not 
called  upon  to  lend  his  share  of  cheer  and  good  humor, 
and  in  his  addresses  always  there  blended  that  bright 
humor  with  the  splendid  philosophy  of  his  living.  He 
was  toastmaster  on  the  occasion  of  the  entertainment 
of  Sir  Thomas  Lipton  at  Pasadena,  and  it  was  at  that 
time  that  he  poked  a  bit  of  fun  at  his  neighboring  city 
of  Los  Angeles  that  has  become  classic  in  the  West: 

What  is  the  use  of  Los  Angeles  annexing  territory  to  make 
it  a  seaport?  All  Los  Angeles  has  to  do  is  to  run  a  pipe  line 
down  to  the  ocean,  and  then  if  she  will  only  suck  as  hard  as 
she  blows  now,  she  will  have  the  whole  ocean  at  her  doorstep. 

297 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Continuing,  he  said: 

We  do  our  guest  honor  in  the  most  typical  Pasadena  fashion. 
We  welcome  him  to  a  banquet  party  at  which  tea  is  the  only 
tipple,  where  the  toastmaster  is  a  Baptist  minister,  and  one  of 
the  after-dinner  speakers  is  a  Lutheran  missionary,  the  next  a 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  third  a  Scotch 
Presbyterian  minister.  If  that  blend  of  theology  doesn't 
satisfy  an  Irishman,  who  is  a  British  merchant,  born  in  "  Gles- 
gie"  and  trained  in  America,  we  can  add  a  dozen  other  ecclesi 
astical  flavors  to  it  without  weakening  the  brew. 

The  versatility  and  adaptability  of  his  mind  was 
never  better  shown  than  in  the  introduction  of  the 
speakers  at  this  banquet: 

I  will  fire  the  gun — a  harmless  old,  smooth-bore  howitzer, 
that  was  used  all  through  the  Civil  War,  to  start  the  regatta. 
Speaking  of  the  war — but  that  brings  us  into  peril  on  a  lee 
shore.  We  must  hasten  to  tack  ship  and  get  out  into  blue 
water.  We  are  at  the  starting  line  and  the  starting  gun  is 
fired.  It's  up  to  you,  Dr.  Scherer. 

Dr.  Scherer  began  his  talk  by  stating  he  had  some 
days  ago  received  a  program  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Society  dinner  given  to  Mr.  Burdette  this  same  evening, 
and  Mr.  Burdette  had  been  its  guest  in  Los  Angeles  and 
driven  to  Pasadena  to  act  as  toastmaster  at  this  ban 
quet.  Dr.  Scherer  went  on  to  say: 

this  program  was  written  all  over  in  red  ink  by  the  hand  of 
this  festive  toastmaster,  and  it  read:  "They  may  kill  me  yet. 
If  they  do,  bury  me  on  old  Orange  Grove  Avenue.  It  will  be 
sure  to  be  torn  up  on  or  before  the  resurrection  day." 

In  introducing  Dr.  Learned  to  the  Lipton  banquet 
ers,  Mr.  Burdette  said: 

I  have  not  received  much  education  in  yachting,  but  as  a 
boy  I  can  remember  sailing  over  into  a  neighbor's  orchard  and 
back  again,  with  spanker  flying.  That  was  in  old  Nantucket, 
that  was,  as  you  know,  a  great  whaling  point  in  those  days. 

298 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

And  now  we  are  to  hear  from  a  rector  of  the  Church  of 
England.  Hard-a-lee  Doctor. 

At  the  close  he  delivered  the  "dog  watch "  in 
nautical  terms,  with  great  applause. 

None  who  had  any  claim  from  a  civic  or  philan 
thropic  point  of  view  to  his  talents  as  a  public  speaker 
and  to  the  wealth  of  his  philosophy  and  affection,  ever 
sought  him  in  vain.  To  the  nurses  graduating  from 
training  at  the  Pasadena  Hospital  he  gave  some  advice 
born  out  of  his  long  experiences,  when  he  said: 

It  is  only  a  child  of  a  world,  a  mere  baby  among  the  planets. 
You  will  humor  it  a  little  and  be  patient  with  it.  Like  all 
children,  it  is  more  or  less  conceited.  You  will  find  that  after 
the  first  time  it  pretends  to  have  brain  fag  merely  to  enjoy  the 
luxury  of  a  trained  nurse,  and  like  all  children,  it  loves  a  real 
headache  and  thinks  it  is  going  to  die  in  ten  minutes. 

You  will  know  when  to  soothe  and  comfort  it  with  motherly 
cooings  and  you  will  know  when  to  administer  the  other  treat 
ment.  For  sometimes  the  very  best  and  kindest  thing  you  can 
do  is  at  some  opportune  moment,  when  none  of  the  family 
is  around,  to  lift  it  out  of  its  warm,  comfortable  bed  and  its 
nest  of  downy  pillows,  and  set  it  down  into  the  hardest  bottomed 
chair  in  the  room  with  a  slam  that  rattles  the  medicine  glasses 
on  the  little  stand.  Astonishment  associates  most  advanta 
geously  with  firmness  as  an  effective  remedial  agent  in  a  large 
class  of  disorders  which  exist  only  in  the  whim  of  the  patient. 

I  have  been  a  trained  nurse  myself  for  many  years.  My 
observation  has  been  that  in  cases  of  the  character  above  indi 
cated,  after  a  patient  has  been  treated  with  coddle  he  is  subject 
to  frequent  relapses,  coming  back  again  and  again  for  more, 
until  he  can  take  thirty  doses  a  day,  and  then  groan  himself 
sweetly  and  comfortably  to  sleep,  whereas  after  one  heroic  dose 
of  slam,  the  same  patient  gets  up,  puts  on  his  every-day  clothes 
and  goes  back  to  work. 

He  welcomed  the  66th  Annual  Convention  of  the 
American  Institute  of  Homeopathy,  in  Pasadena,  by 
saying: 

299 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

A  hundred  thousand  allopathic  welcomes!  Each  welcome 
in  heroic  doses — the  minutest  trituration  bigger  than  an  old- 
fashioned  bolus.  To  be  taken  in  the  same  old  way — eyes  shut 
and  mouth  open — swallowing  whatever  we  set  before  you, 
believing  whatever  we  tell  you  and  asking  no  questions  for  your 
conscience's  sake.  Most  appropriately  are  you  welcomed,  for 
this  month  also  marks  my  own  personal  sixty-sixth  annual 
convention.  I  was  born  the  year  after  Samuel  Christian 
Frederich  Hahnemann  died.  How  the  world  got  along  during 
that  interim  year  has  always  been  a  mystery  to  me.  I  was  born 
in  homeopathic  quantity,  and  in  my  old  age  I  have  not  departed 
therefrom.  Welcome,  then,  from  a  contemporary  of  your  own 
school. 

Of  three  things  is  sickless  and  sinless  Pasadena  proud — the 
Board  of  Trade,  the  churches  and  Pasadena  Hospital;  every 
one  of  them  over-crowded,  and  each  one  naturally  busier  than 
the  other  two.  There  aren't  enough  physicians  in  the  city  to 
look  at  half  the  tongues  that  are  thrust  out  daily,  and  so  the 
postmaster  works  overtime  at  the  stamp  window. 

You  are  as  welcome  to  our  festivities  as  you  are  to  the  rooms 
haunted  with  pain,  where  imploring  eyes,  with  the  mute  elo 
quence  of  need,  look  into  your  faces  as  the  lepers  used  to  look 
up  into  the  face  of  the  Healing  Christ.  Welcome  to  bowers  of 
roses  and  to  the  banquet  board,  and  to  all  the  fraternity  of  our 
good  fellowship.  We  will  crown  you  with  wreaths  of  camomile 
and  garlands  of  belladonna.  We  will  decorate  the  gates  of  the 
city  and  the  windows  of  our  drug  stores  with  banners  of  calamus 
— sweet  flag  of  our  country! 

But  such  an  allopathic  speech  is  out  of  place  and  practice 
at  a  homeopathic  banquet.  As  I  took  my  text  from  Shakes 
peare,  I  close  with  the  words  of  the  bard  in  the  "  Merchant  of 
Venice": 

"  Sirs,  you  are  welcome  to  our  house;  It  must  appear  in  other 
ways  than  words;  therefore  I  scant  this  breathing  welcome." 

Three  dollars,  please.  And  ten  cents  for  the  phial.  No 
charge  for  the  cork. 

At  the  time  of  the  reception  to  the  Fleet  in  1908, 
he  was  in  constant  demand  as  the  one  man  who  could 
express  the  spirit  of  the  Coast.  It  was  on  at  least  six 

300 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

nearly  consecutive  occasions  that  he  addressed  different 
gatherings  and  functions  in  honor  of  the  officers  of  the 
Fleet,  and  at  San  Francisco  on  May  7th,  he  spoke  on 
"Battles  and  Banquets",  and  said: 

A  little  while  ago,  in  the  land  of  Everything,  I  sat  at  a 
banquet  with  the  Atlantic  Fleet  for  six  glorious  days,  as  many 
joyous  nights,  and  an  equal  number  of  thoughtful  mornings. 
There  have  been  banquets,  some  of  you  may  remember,  that 
have  lasted  longer  than  that,  tasting  different  each  successive 
morning.  I  sat  enthroned  between  the  Quaker  uniforms  of  the 
Admirals,  and  the  sad,  nun-like  garbs  of  the  Governor's  staff, 
representing  the  entire  gold  reserve  of  the  Treasury,  listening 
impatiently  to  the  eloquent  after-dinner  speeches  consuming 
valuable  time  which  should  have  been  utilized  by  mine  own. 

And  as  I  heard  the  landsmen,  who  got  so  seasick  on  the 
launches  they  couldn't  visit  the  fleet,  extol  the  splendor  and 
the  invincible  armament  of  our  peerless  navy,  I  thought  what 
a  cat-and-parrot  time  the  Japanese  fleet  would  have  trying  to 
sail  up  the  Los  Angeles  River.  I  laughed  to  think  what  a 
bitter  awakening  would  come  to  the  misguided  nation  that 
should  surround  the  United  States  and  try  to  starve  us  out. 
An'  "durin'  the  wah",  wherein,  with  a  most  unnatural  and 
bloodthirsty  ferocity  entirely  foreign  to  my  native  disposition, 
I  killed  as  many  of  the  Confeds  as  they  killed  of  me,  we  used 
to  say  of  our  favorite  general,  that  " he'd  rather  fight  than  eat". 
Gentlemen  of  the  Blue  and  Gold,  I  have  fought  for  my  country 
and  I  have  eaten  for  her.  And  I  declare  that  our  fighting  Gen 
eral  was  right.  He  was  a  soldier,  and  he  instinctively  chose 
the  easier  job.  I  wasn't  so  tired  at  the  close  of  the  siege  of 
Vicksburg,  or  the  long  foot-race  down  the  Red  River,  as  I  was 
when  the  festivities  ended  at  Los  Angeles.  .  .  . 

Battles  and  banquets  are  yoke  fellows  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  Esau  sat  down  to  dinner  with  his  clever  brother,  and 
the  result  of  that  savory  banquet  was  enmity  and  hatred 
between  the  house  of  the  twin  brethren  for  nearly  4000  years, 
for  they  hate  each  other  unto  this  day.  They  were  good 
friends — as  good  friends  as  twin  brothers  usually  are — until  they 
met  at  dinner  and  talked  business. 

301 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

The  great  war  of  American  Independence  raged  around  a 
cup  of  tea.  Our  fathers  loved  tea.  But  they  died  rather  than 
drink  it.  If  it  was  English  breakfast  tea,  I  don't  blame  them. 

The  French  revolution  simply  formed  the  long  bread  lines 
of  the  Paris  mobs  into  a  line  of  battle.  If  you  want  to  set  a 
group  of  friendly  dogs  to  fighting,  just  throw  down  one  bone 
among  them. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  walking  down  a  street  in  Springfield 
one  morning,  with  two  of  his  boys  beside  him,  bawling  lustily. 
A  neighbor  heard  the  row  and  looked  out.  "  What's  the  matter 
with  the  boys,  Mr.  Lincoln?"  "Oh,"  he  replied,  "just  what 
ails  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  have  three  walnuts  and  each  of 
them  wants  two." 

To  the  graduates  of  Throop  Polytechnic  Institution 
he  gave  of  his  best  experience  when  he  said : 

You  hear  the  question  discussed  in  religious  magazines  and 
the  pulpits  all  over  the  country,  "Why  have  the  working  men 
left  the  church?"  I  will  tell  you.  Because  we  have  so  few 
working  men  in  the  pulpit.  Here  a  boy  is  sent  to  kindergarten 
when  he  is  4  years  old,  enters  the  primary  department  at  6, 
graduates  from  high  school  at  18  or  19,  gets  his  diploma  from 
college  at  22,  closes  a  post-graduate  course  at  Harvard  at  23. 
A  year  in  Europe.  Then  he  specializes  for  a  year,  and  at  25, 
having  spent  21  years  of  his  life  in  the  school,  studying,  and 
in  the  class  room  among  students,  professors,  investigators 
and  theorists,  he  steps  out  upon  the  rostrum  or  climbs  into  the 
pulpit. 

"Now,  I  will  teach  men.  Now  I  will  get  at  the  hearts  of 
men  who  have  moistened  their  brows  with  the  sweat  of  toil 
since  they  were  15  years  old,  who  began  their  apprenticeship 
to  life  when  they  were  6  years  old.  Who  have  earned  their 
own  living  ever  since  they  could  sell  newspapers,  polish  shoes 
and  run  on  errands." 

Then  he  preaches  and  lectures  to  people  brought  up  some 
what  like  himself  and  wonders  why  the  working  men  have 
drifted  away  from  the  church. 

I  tell  you,  learned  professor,  these  things  that  have  made 
you  the  great  teacher,  the  wise  man,  the  learned  scholar  that 
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VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

you  are,  do  not  open  a  way  into  the  hearts  of  men.  I  tell  you, 
Jesus  Christ  could  not  so  have  drawn  to  himself  the  hearts  of 
the  common  people  who  heard  him  gladly,  the  thronging  multi 
tudes  that  followed  him  gladly  out  into  the  wilderness;  the  poor 
and  the  wretched,  the  homeless  and  the  penniless  had  not 
clustered  about  him,  blind  men  had  not  called  to  him,  mothers 
had  not  brought  their  little  ones  to  him,  lepers  in  defiance  of 
the  law  had  not  burst  through  the  multitudes  to  cast  them 
selves  at  his  feet,  had  he  not  been  the  son  of  a  carpenter,  even 
as  he  was  the  son  of  God. 

He  was  always  an  ardent  suffragist,  believing  in  the 
absolute  social  and  political  equality  of  the  sexes,  and 
his  voice  and  pen  were  busy  in  any  campaign  for 
women's  suffrage  or  its  extension.  Typical  of  his 
suffrage  addresses  is  one  delivered  in  Temple  Baptist 
Church  on  the  subject  of  "Fair  Play  for  Fair  Women", 
and  the  text  from  Philippians,  "Help  these  women". 
He  was  eloquent  with  his  faith  in  the  equality  of  woman 
to  take  her  place  beside  man  in  any  field  of  righteous 
ness  or  endeavor,  and  in  a  later  speech  delivered  in  the 
heat  of  a  suffrage  campaign,  he  said: 

Why  shouldn't  woman  vote?  Everybody  else  in  America 
votes.  Americans,  English,  French,  Germans,  Dutch,  Italians, 
Russians,  Austrians,  Canadians,  Mexicans,  negroes,  Indians, 
half-breeds,  rich  men,  poor  men,  beggar  men,  tramps  and 
thieves,  burglars  and  safe-blowers,  confidence  men,  hold-ups 
and  strong  arms,  men  who  can't  read,  men  who  can't  write, 
men  who  can't  speak  a  word  of  English,  drunkards  and  degen 
erates,  swindlers  and  pickpockets,  frauds  and  counterfeiters, 
pig-headed  men,  skillet-headed  men,  men  with  one  idea,  men 
with  half  an  idea,  men  who  never  had  a  ghost  of  an  idea  in  all 
their  lives,  and  never  had  any  place  to  put  it  if  they  had  picked 
one  up  in  the  street,  men  who  have  been  in  jail,  men  on  their  way 
to  the  penitentiary,  politicians,  ward  heelers,  grafters  and  ballot- 
box  stuffers,  bribe-givers  and  bribe-takers,  all  the  men  in  Adams 
County,  0.,  men  who  run  dance  houses  and  men  who  run  gamb 
ling  houses,  men  who  run  blind  pigs  and  road-houses,  liars, 

303 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

fools,  knaves,  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  rascality — the  one 
qualification  in  every  instance  being  that  they  must  be  males — 
these  have  each  an  equal  voice  in  the  selection  of  our  officers, 
the  law-makers  of  the  great  republic  from  President  down  to 
Councilman. 

Now,  what's  the  matter  with  extending  the  franchise  to  the 
woman?  Isn't  she  good  enough?  You  entrust  a  share  in  the 
direction  of  the  government  of  the  country  to  all  the  scourings 
of  rascaldom  enumerated  above.  These  are  your  fellow  citi 
zens.  You  walk  to  the  polls  with  them.  Some  of  them — a 
great  many  of  them,  belong  to  your  party  and  help  to  elect 
your  candidate. 

Your  wife — sweet,  and  pure,  and  refined,  and  a  little  more 
highly  educated  than  yourself,  it  may  be — can't  she  be  trusted 
to  select  the  best  candidate  and  cast  a  vote  for  him?  Do  you 
demand  in  the  voter  a  moral  qualification  so  high  that  she 
cannot  attain  thereto?  Isn't  your  wife,  your  sister,  your 
sweetheart,  your  mother,  good  enough  to  assist  in  the  direction 
of  the  affairs  of  this  republic — this  State  of  California — this 
city  of  Los  Angeles? 

These  fellows  whom  I  have  described  in  types  and  occupa 
tions  think  she  is  too  good.  That's  why  they  are  going  to  vote 
against  woman  suffrage.  Every  man  who  is  afraid  of  the 
entrance  into  our  political  life  of  a  mighty  influence  for  right 
eousness  will  vote  against  the  eighth  amendment,  even  though 
he  has  to  take  a  man  into  the  booth  to  mark  his  ballot  for 
him. 

Doesn't  she  know  enough?  Hasn't  she  good  sense,  your 
wife?  Doesn't  she  know  as  much  as  the  flat-head  from  the 
slums  of  some  European  capital  who  was  naturalized  in  a 
wholesale  bunch  before  he  had  been  in  New  York  long  enough 
to  get  on  the  police  force?  Doesn't  she  know  as  much  as  any 
dumb-head  in  the  mobs  of  voting  cattle  who  are  often  herded 
to  the  polls  in  the  great  cities,  casting  their  ballots  without 
knowing  for  whom  they  are  voting?  Doesn't  she  know  enough 
to  vote  the  ballot  the  man  hands  her? 

She  knows  more  than  that.  She  knows  enough  to  mark 
her  own  ballot.  She  knows  too  much.  That's  the  reason  the 
men  who  deal  in  "voting  cattle"  are  opposed  to  the  eighth 
304 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

amendment.  The  professional  politicians  are  her  avowed 
enemies. 

Isn't  she  clever  enough?  Does  she  lack  political  intelli 
gence?  She  has  had  little  enough  experience  in  politics  in  this 
State.  It  is  difficult  to  learn  politics  without  practice.  But 
listen  to  this:  A  few  weeks  ago  all  the  political  camps  in  the 
State  were  thrown  into  a  panic  by  the  fear  that  all  the  amend 
ments  would  fail,  being  either  badly  drawn,  faultily  recorded, 
incorrectly  phrased,  some  fault  of  ignorance  or  incapacity  on 
the  part  of  the  statesmen  and  secretaries  threatened  the  valid 
ity  of  every  one  of  them. 

With  one  lone  exception. 

Let  me  read  you  a  paragraph  from  the  editorial  columns  of 
the  Los  Angeles  Times — a  journal  not  favorable  to  the  cause  of 
woman  suffrage,  but  which  is  fair  to  say,  editorially,  August  21, 
that  "amidst  the  tangled  condition  of  the  amendments  which 
cost  the  State  of  California  thousands  of  dollars  to  have  pre 
sented  in  their  muddled  shape,  that  one  lone  amendment  stood 
out,  clear,  comprehensive,  exact  in  text  and  record,  and  that  is 
the  amendment  providing  for  woman  suffrage." 

Curtsy  to  the  Times,  ladies,  your  prettiest  and  gracefullest. 
Toss  the  General  a  rose.  In  the  heart  of  him,  he  knows  that 
legislation  would  be  improved  in  form,  spirit,  enactment,  text, 
transcript  and  record,  if  there  were  a  few  women  to  look 
after  it. 

While  his  was  the  type  of  mind  that  had  little  com 
prehension  of  commercialism  as  practiced  especially  by 
banking  institutions,  it  is  perhaps  a  remarkable  illustra 
tion  of  his  diversified  adaptability  that  when  the 
National  Bankers  Association  met  in  Los  Angeles  in 
1910  he  was  asked  to  make  them  an  address,  which  he 
did  on  "Thrift/'  so  acceptably  it  was  not  only  printed 
in  full  in  their  annual  record,  but  has  been  repeatedly 
reprinted  for  the  purpose  of  suggestion  and  entertain 
ment: 

What  is  thrift?    I  went  to  that  great  safety  deposit  of  all 

human  knowledge,  the  Century  Dictionary,  for  information, 

20  305 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  the  dictionary  said  that  thrift  is  the  condition  of  one  who 
thrives.  Well,  that  sounded  reasonable,  but  it  was  not  quite 
good  enough,  so  I  read  on  further.  It  said:  "Luck,  fortune, 
success."  And  then  it  paused  there,  for  the  audience  didn't 
look  satisfied,  and  it  said  once  more — it  said:  "Frugality, 
economical  management."  And  still  the  judges  looked  a  little 
bit  dissatisfied,  and  the  Century  Dictionary  made  one  final  and 
a  good  shot  at  it.  It  said:  "Good  husbandry."  Well,  that  is 
about  it.  The  best  definition  I  know  of  is  just  about 
"thrift". 

It  is  like  the  boy's  dogs.  He  had  four  or  five,  and  one  day 
he  showed  them  to  a  friend  who  came  to  see  them.  This  was  a 
fox  hound;  this  was  a  bull  dog;  this  was  a  terrier;  this  was 
another.  And  finally  they  came  to  the  last  one,  who  had  the 
best  qualities,  the  keenest  scent,  was  the  best  fighter  and  the 
one  that  was  able  to  take  care  of  itself  under  all  circumstances, 
and  the  boy  said:  "This  is  just  dog." 

Now,  after  all,  what  is  thrift?  Just  thrift.  It  is  an  old 
English  word,  and,  like  most  old  words,  has  rustic  associations. 
The  word  brings  to  one's  mental  vision  a  clean  farm,  not  over- 
acred,  but  without  a  weed  or  a  mortgage  on  it;  a  farmer  who 
has  men  to  do  his  work  and  a  farmer's  wife  with  servants  in 
the  house  and  leisure  afternoons  for  herself,  in  spite  of  all  which 
the  man  does  more  work  than  any  two  of  his  hired  men  and  the 
woman  does  a  little  more  than  half  the  housework. 

He  takes  the  paper  and  reads  it  without  spelling  the  words 
of  two  syllables  aloud;  is  a  church  member;  a  school  trustee; 
owns  a  little  mysterious  dividend-paying  stock,  which  the  neigh 
bors  always  mention  in  the  plural;  loans  a  little  money  on  cut 
throat  security  and  compounds  all  the  overdue  interest;  is 
kind-hearted  and  cheery  spoken;  forecloses  a  mortgage  with  a 
smile  and  an  encouraging  prophecy  of  better  times  just  ahead 
for  the  mortgagor.  Pays  every  obligation  on  the  minute  and 
to  the  penny,  takes  advantage  of  every  holiday  and  Sunday, 
and  always  waits  for  the  change.  Waits  till  he  gets  it,  too. 
But  if  the  odd  penny  in  the  transaction  is  coming  your  way  he 
hesitates  and  gazes  at  you  with  a  pathetic  note  of  inquiry  in  his 
expectant  eyes.  If,  with  half  an  eye  on  that  penny  yourself, 
you  mumble  ever  so  indistinctly,  "Oh,  that's  all  right!"  he 
306 


VERSATILITY   OF  TALENTS 

fades  out  of  the  scenario  so  swiftly  and  completely  that  you 
think  you  must  have  dreamed  you  saw  him  standing  there  a 
minute  ago. 

Never  wronged  any  man  out  of  a  dollar  and  no  man  ever 
did  him  out  of  a  nickel;  carries  his  money  in  an  old-fashioned 
wallet,  with  more  and  tighter  folds  than  a  boa-constrictor,  with 
which  he  wraps  up  his  wad  very  rapidly  when  he  has  received  a 
payment,  and  unwraps  it  with  the  deliberate  motions  of  a  man 
working  by  the  day  when  he  is  getting  out  money  to  pay  over 
to  you.  When  his  wife  wants  a  dollar  for  shoes  for  herself  and 
the  five  children  it  takes  him  longer  to  unroll  that  wallet  than 
it  did  to  unveil  the  Washington  monument.  When  he  dies, 
which  he  does  very  reluctantly,  he  leaves  his  family  well  pro 
vided  for.  Well,  that's  thrift. 

The  family  then  proceed  to  cut  the  thong  off  that  wallet 
close  up  to  the  leather  and  rip  it  up  the  back,  preparatory  to 
giving  a  practical  demonstration  of  spendthrift. 

There  is  a  vaudeville  song  which  had  great  vogue  a  few 
years  ago  which  embodies  a  most  excellent  philosophy  of  thrift. 
Being  a  minister  I  had  to  learn  it  from  my  sons,  but  they  say  I 
sing  it  very  well  for  a  preacher.  The  refrain  line  runs  like  this: 
"Every  little  bit  added  to  what  you've  got  makes  just  a  little 
bit  more." 

That  is  the  philosophy  of  worldly  prudence  and  thrift,  and 
it  is  excellent,  so  far  as  it  goes.  The  savings  bank  is  the  best 
school  of  the  best  thrift. 

A  little  tin  savings  bank  on  the  mantel  for  the  baby;  a 
little  iron  one  on  his  table  in  the  boy's  room;  a  big  vault  of 
chilled  steel  for  father;  a  little  corner  in  the  bureau  drawer 
where  everybody  else  can  get  at  it,  for  mother.  All  good  train 
ing  in  saving.  Lay  by  a  little  bit  of  it  as  it  comes  in. 

A  little  bit  out  of  every  pay  envelope,  enough  to  patch  the 
leak  in  the  roof,  enough  to  provide  for  the  "rainy  day",  enough 
for  the  little  holiday  once  in  a  while,  enough  for  a  new  book 
and  an  evening  at  "the  show",  enough  for  the  dreary  days  of 
sickness. 

Enough  to  pay  every  bill  when  it  is  presented.  Enough  to 
take  up  the  note  when  it  is  due.  Enough  to  save  a  man  from 
becoming  the  unmitigated  nuisance  that  is  always  borrowing 

307 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

quarters  and  halves,  knowing  they  are  obligations  too  small  to 
justify  a  dun. 

Enough  to  save  the  humiliation  of  walking  home  because 
you  haven't  the  carfare.  Enough  to  enable  you  to  fearlessly 
meet  the  eye  of  the  deacon  as  he  comes  down  the  church  aisle 
with  the  basket. 

Enough  to  make  you  sure  of  finding  the  dime  in  the  corner 
of  your  pocket  when  you  dive  after  it. 

Just  enough  in  the  bank  so  that  when  your  wife  needs  a  little 
extra  money  for  little  emergency  demands  in  the  household  she 
won't  come  to  you  with  the  air  of  a  woman  who  has  made  up 
her  mind  to  suicide  or  murder,  and  doesn't  care  very  much  which. 

That's  thrift.  That  makes  a  man  rich  on  a  salary,  and  no 
man  ever  yet  got  rich  on  a  salary.  But  he  can  acquire  the 
habit  of  thrift  on  the  smallest  salary,  and  that  is  much  the  same 
thing  as  wealth. 

Just  a  little  bit  more.  Just  enough  to  send  the  children  to 
school;  enough  to  teach  the  boy  a  good  trade  or  start  him  in 
the  way  of  good  business;  enough  to  marry  the  girls  well  and 
happily;  enough  to  keep  an  extra  loaf  in  the  larder  and  a  cup 
and  a  crust  on  the  table  for  a  friend  who  comes  out  of  his 
journey;  enough  for  the  waning  strength  and  shortening  hours 
of  old  age;  enough  to  maintain  the  little  sinking  fund  to  meet 
the  last  expenses  on  earth. 

"Every  little  bit  added  to  what  you've  got  makes  just  a 
little  bit  more."  That's  all  good.  It's  excellent.  It's  sound 
policy.  It's  practical  wisdom.  It's  thrift.  We  ought  to  learn 
it  ourselves  and  teach  it  to  our  children.  It  is  good  judgment, 
sensible  foresight.  Earn;  save;  lay  by  enough  to  keep  the 
wolf  away  from  the  door  when  the  hearse  with  its  sable  plumes 
halts  to  receive  its  freight  of  nothingness.  And  then? 

You  see,  a  man  sort  of  hates  to  close  his  account  and  take 
his  name  off  the  books  of  the  bank  of  which  he  has  been  for  so 
many  years  an  honest  and  honorable  and  respected  customer. 
Any  man,  thrifty  or  shiftless,  dislikes  to  die.  He  hates  to  die. 
For  in  all  God's  world  there  is  nothing  quite  so  worthless  as  a 
dead  man.  A  minute  ago  that  man  was  worth  fifty  million 
dollars.  Now  he  is  poorer  than  the  poorest  pauper  in  the  alms- 
house.  He  doesn't  own  the  shroud  in  which  he  is  clothed. 

308 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

Nor  the  casket  in  which  he  sleeps.  Nor  the  grave  in  which  he 
is  interred.  The  shroud  and  casket  have  a  monetary  value. 
The  body  has  none.  It  hasn't  even  the  value  of  individuality. 
A  minute  ago  he  was  the  Honorable  Dives  Midas,  or  the  Very 
Reverend  Melchizedek  Howler,  or  Major-General  Julius 
Napoleon  Centerfire;  now  he  isn't  anything.  He  is  the  saddest 
and  most  insignificant  of  all  human  things,  a  "has  been",  for 
we  speak  of  him  as  " The  late  Mr.  So  and  So".  He  used  to  be 
somebody.  He  is  less  than  nothing.  For  he  isn't  even  "he" 
nor  "  him  "  any  more.  He  is  "  it ",  with  a  little  "  i ".  We  sever 
his  last  connection  with  the  human  race  and  classify  him  among 
"  things",  taking  away  even  his  personal  pronoun.  No  wonder 
a  thrifty  man  who  has  been  somebody — anybody — in  his  day 
hates  to  die. 

And  he  doesn't  have  to  die.  There  is  no  need  of  a  thrifty, 
forehanded  man  dying.  Only  the  thriftless  perish.  If  a  man 
begins  in  time  the  cultivation  of  a  habit  of  thrift  will  keep  him 
alive  forever. 

If  he  saves  his  money  he  adds  to  his  deposits  in  "The 
Department  Mercy"  so  beautifully  described  by  Mr.  Edward 
L.  Robinson  in  a  paper  read  before  a  previous  session  of  this 
Association;  if  he  saves  his  wages  he  saves  his  sympathy,  his 
patience,  his  kindliness;  if  every  time  he  adds  a  little  bit  of  his 
money  to  what  he  has  already  got  he  adds  a  little  bit  to  his 
generosity,  his  neighborly  helpfulness,  his  unselfishness,  his 
charity,  he'll  have  just  a  little  bit  more  every  pay  day. 

Then  when  he  appears  at  the  little  wicket  in  the  big 
pearly  gate  and  says,  "Well,  here  I  am  at  last— there's  one 
thing  you  can  put  off  only  so  long";  St.  Peter  will  say,  "Have 
you  your  deposit  book?" 

And  the  thrifty  man  will  hand  it  over  with  an  anxious  face, 
wondering  if  he  is  going  to  get  one  of  those  pleasant  little  "red 
ink"  reminders  of  an  everlasting  overdraft. 

And  the  books  won't  agree,  any  more  than  the  depositor's 
book  ever  agrees  with  the  cashier's  account  down  here.  And 
just  as  the  man  is  growing  nervous  the  saint,  who  has  been 
comparing  the  two  books  with  a  smiling  face,  will  say: 

"  Why,  man,  your  book  of  Forgettery  is  an  eternity  out  of 
balance  with  your  book  of  Remembrances.  There  are  a  thou 
sand  transactions  you  haven't  entered  at  all." 

309 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

And  holding  the  thrifty  man's  book  of  "  givings-away "  in 
one  hand,  he  will  open  the  gate  wider  than  Sunday  with  the 
other,  and  say: 

"Come  in,  man,  come  in;  you've  got  a  balance  here  you 
can't  spend  in  ten  million  years." 

You  see,  down  here  we  measure  a  thrifty  man's  fortune  by 
what  he  leaves.  Up  there  they  count  it  by  what  he  gave  away. 

There  are  two  systems  of  thrift.  One  is  just  as  thrifty  as  the 
other.  Only  one  lasts  a  few  million  years  longer  than  the  other. 

That's  all. 

To  his  fellows  of  the  church  he  was  always  cordial 
generous  and  open-hearted.  In  an  address  of  welcome 
to  a  brother  of  the  ministry,  who  had  come  to  fill  the 
pulpit  of  a  Pasadena  Church,  he  poured  out  his  warmth 
of  affection  in  characteristic  fashion : 

We  welcome  you  as  soldiers  welcome  a  comrade,  a  new  man 
on  the  firing  line.  A  champion  who  is  no  friend  of  Goliath. 
A  man  who  will  not  fall  down  before  he  is  pushed,  a  preacher 
who  preaches  the  truth  by  instinct  and  preaches  the  gospel 
from  habit.  We  welcome  a  shepherd  who  can  tell  a  wolf  from 
a  sheep  without  looking  into  a  natural  history.  Who  knows  a 
hypocrite  by  his  whine  and  a  Christian  by  his  life,  and  a  sinner 
by  his  rags.  You  are  welcome  as  the  sunshine  to  the  roses, 
as  the  rains  to  the  wheat  fields,  as  the  bees  to  the  flowers,  wel 
come  as  December  sunshine.  Welcome  as  tourists  in  January. 
Welcome  as  gifts  on  Christmas.  Welcome  as  a  bride  at  a 
wedding,  and  a  baby  at  a  christening. 

His  addresses,  while  always  richly  humorous,  con 
tained  many  jewels  of  sound  and  wholesome  philosophy: 

Great  things  don't  amount  to  much.  Life  is  made  up  of 
little  things.  You  can  travel  out  West  for  a  thousand  miles 
and  never  see  a  mountain,  but  it  is  the  greatest  farming  country 
in  the  world.  I  have  known  men  who  were  so  great  they  were 
of  no  account.  You  have  seen  trees  so  big  you  could  not  tie  a 
horse  to  them.  I  have  heard  preachers  who  knew  so  much  you 
could  not  understand  a  word  they  said,  and  once  in  a  while  you 
go  into  a  house  where  they  have  a  Bible  so  big  they  never  read 
310 


VERSATILITY   OF  TALENTS 

it.  It  is  easier  to  be  great  than  it  is  to  be  humble.  I  never 
tried  being  great,  but  if  it  is  any  harder  than  it  is  to  be  humble, 
I  don't  believe  anybody  on  this  earth  ever  was  great.  I  never 
stumbled  over  a  two-story  house  in  my  life,  and  I  have  been 
where  there  were  thousands  of  them.  Brick  in  the  sidewalk. 
Never  had  a  lightning  rod  run  through  me — sliver.  Never 
knocked  my  brains  out — stubbed  my  toe.  I  never  had  a  cow 
bite  me,  but  I  have  had  a  little  bit  of  a  steel-blue  wasp,  not 
nearly  as  big  as  the  littlest  cow  in  Jersey,  prod  me  with  its  tiny 
bayonet  so  that  I  could  not  catch  my  breath  for  five  seconds, 
and  when  I  did  catch  it  I  hollered  with  it. 

As  toastmaster  at  a  Board  of  Trade  banquet,  in  his 
introduction  of  the  eloquent  Southern  speaker,  Dean 
Baker  P.  Lee  of  Los  Angeles,  his  own  Southern  imagery 
was  no  less  eloquent: 

I  once  saw  a  farm  during  a  pilgrimage  in  Kentucky  that  I 
would  like  to  own.  Not  for  the  farm,  but  for  the  brook  that 
runs  through  it.  It  was  a  liquid  run  of  innocent  crookedness. 
Crooked?  A  combination  of  Beef  Trust  and  Standard  Oil 
would  be  straighter  than  the  golden  rule  in  comparison  with  it. 
It  goes  wandering  through  the  green  meadow  as  though  all  the 
year  were  June,  and  it  had  nothing  to  do  but  kill  time  and  loiter 
about  in  shady  nooks  and  sunny  beaches.  Crooked?  Not  a 
silver-plated  shiner  that  flashes  his  glittering  scales  in  the  sun 
light  down  in  the  limpid  ripples  can  tell  whether  he  is  going  up 
stream  or  down. 

The  purple-plumed  iron  weed  and  the  bending  golden  rod, 
bowing  to  each  other  with  stately  grace  across  the  singing  brook 
don't  know  whether  they  are  standing  on  opposite  sides,  or  if  they 
are  on  the  same  side,  which  side  it  is.  All  the  way  across  that 
meadow  it  plays  hide  and  seek  with  itself,  boxing  the  compass 
in  its  erratic  wanderings  every  hundred  feet.  It  came  into  the 
meadow,  I  think,  when  the  wind  anemones  were  blooming  in 
the  lee  of  the  hills  that  fringe  the  farm.  "Oh,  my  beautiful 
darlings,"  it  said,  "  I  will  stay  here  near  you."  But  the  wind 
flowers  passed  away  and  the  violets  opened  their  blue  eyes  and 
the  buttercups  shone  in  the  grasses  of  the  meadows.  "  I  have 
lost  my  sweethearts,"  said  fickle  little  brook,  "but  the  meadow 

311 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

is  beautiful  since  you  came  into  it,  and  I  will  stay  here  until 
you  are  gone." 

And  it  turned  again  and  loitered  to  the  north,  where  the 
wind  flowers  died,  and  eddied  to  the  east,  where  a  bank  of 
violets  looked  shyly  down  at  him  with  their  great  purple  eyes, 
and  he  strolled  to  the  south,  where  the  buttercups,  none 
abashed,  laughed  merrily  in  the  golden  sunlight,  and  he  saunt 
ered  to  the  west,  where  the  wild  rose,  shivering  a  little  was 
just  trying  on  her  new  spring  dress,  which  wasn't  long  enough 
yet  to  cover  her  round,  wine-red  arms.  And  by  and  by  the 
violets  closed  their  dear  little  eyes,  and  the  buttercups  faded, 
and  the  little  brook,  who  had  got  back  nicely  to  the  place  where 
he  ran  under  the  fence  to  get  into  the  meadow  when  he  first 
saw  the  flowers,  rippled  slowly  over  the  wild  rose  again,  who 
was  now  in  full  dress  and  wore  her  lovely  pink  bonnet,  and  had 
clusters  of  buds  all  jthe  way  from  her  throat  and  shoulders 
down  to  her  waist.  "Ah  me,"  he  murmured,  "my  friends  are 
gone,  and  I  am  so  lonesome,  I  was  just  going  to  run  down  to  the 
sea  and  drown  myself.  But  you  are  so  beautiful  I  want  to 
stay  here  where  I  may  see  you." 

And  so  Violet  and  Buttercup  were  laid  away  with  poor 
little  Bloodroot  and  Sailor's-breeches,  and  by  this  time  the 
little  brook  had  so  many  playmates  that  Wild  Rose  and  Sweet 
Brier  only  saw  him  when  he  came  around  to  that  corner  of  the 
meadow.  He  ran  about  all  the  time  singing  down  little  runs 
with  the  most  inimitable  trills,  babbling  with  a  family  of  great 
hard-headed  rocks  that  had  settled  on  the  edge  of  a  pool  and 
gone  into  the  moss  business,  whispering  to  the  blue  flags  clus 
tered  under  the  low  bank,  playing  with  the  tall  reeds  that 
fringed  the  still  pools,  and  lingering  a  long  time  with  the  groups 
of  colt's  foot  where  the  waters  were  shallow.  There  were  so 
many  things  to  see  and  so  much  to  say  in  this  meadow,  no 
wonder  the  little  brook  ran  about  in  it  all  summer  before  at  last, 
when  the  wild  rose  had  thrown  away  the  pretty  pink  bonnet 
and  put  on  the  little  red  winter  hood,  and  the  rushes  were 
brown  and  the  colt's  foot  withered,  and  the  goldenrod  was 
gray  and  the  purple  iron-weed  was  plumed  with  tufts  of  feath 
ery  brown,  it  turned  to  the  lower  end  of  the  meadow  and  creep 
ing  under  the  fence  went  lingering  away  to  the  river,  running 
very  slowly,  because  it  knew  it  was  leaving  Kentucky. 
312 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

Never,  to  my  knowledge,  did  he  attend  a  banquet 
or  a  large  public  gathering  of  any  kind  that,  whether 
on  the  programme  or  not,  there  was  not  an  insistent 
call  for  some  contribution  from  him,  and  those  who 
heard  him  most  often  and  knew  him  best,  never  ceased 
to  marvel  how  he  rose  to  the  occasion,  no  matter  what 
the  topic  was  or  the  type  of  listeners  there  to  be  enter 
tained,  and  how  he  always  seemed  to  be  full  of  the 
subject  in  hand,  with  or  without  preparation. 

One  happy  toast  he  gave  at  the  wedding  supper  of 
our  son,  Roy  to  Helen: 

A  toast  to  the  bride!  Fairest  and  sweetest  of  brides!  And 
a  health  to  the  bride  means  also  "hail  to  the  bridegroom",  for 
they  are  now  and  forever  inseparable — one  in  everything.  An 
hour  ago,  like  the  Dauphin  of  France  and  the  "daughter  of 
Spain", 

*'  He  was  the  half  part  of  a  blessed  man, 
Left  to  be  finished  by  such  as  she; 
Whose  fullness  of  perfection  lay  in  him." 

But  Pastor  Freeman  and  I  "joined"  these  two  silver  currents 
to  "glorify  the  banks  that  bind  them  in."  I  am  the  richest 
man  but  one  in  all  this  company.  For  I  have  just  received  the 
largest  wedding  fee  ever  paid  a  minister  in  all  this  land.  My 
grateful  son  has  enriched  me  with  a  daughter  whose  precious- 
ness  cannot  be  measured  in  any  terms  of  value.  And  he — most 
happy  man — can  say,  with  Valentine — 

"Why  man,  she  is  mine  own, 
And  I  as  rich  in  having  such  a  jewel, 
As  twenty  seas,  if  all  their  sands  were  pearl, 
The  water  nectar,  and  the  rocks  pure  gold." 

The  bride !  God  bless  her !  A  thousand  times  in  a  thousand 
ways,  God  bless  her! 

It  is  impossible  to  give  anylllustrations  of  his  ability 
to  entertain  in  the  social  group,  but  always  he  was 
the  center  and  life  of  conversation,  and  it  pleased  him 

313 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

much  when  I  said  after  one  of  those  occasions  that  his 
mind  sometimes  reminded  me  of  a  rag  bag.  You  could 
put  your  hand  in  and  you  always  brought  out  some 
thing  useful,  but  it  never  matched  anything  else  that 
was  in  there,  and  it  was  always  a  surprise.  I  have 
often  regretted  that  it  was  not  possible  to  have  had  a 
verbatim  report  of  some  of  his  most  marvelous  quips 
and  turns  and  keenest  humor,  which  were  frequently 
born  when  he  was  waking  out  of  a  sound  sleep  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  or  the  early  morning.  His  custom 
of  starting  the  day  with  a  whistle  or  a  song  or  a  story 
was  largely  the  text  for  the  constant  cheer  which  he 
preached  by  the  spirit  hour  in  and  hour  out  under  all 
conditions  of  life. 

On  July  14,  1903,  he  was  appointed  as  one  of  the 
Commissioners  of  the  City  of  Pasadena,  serving  on  the 
Fire  and  Parks  Committee.  He  enjoyed  this  service 
very  much,  because  of  his  association  with  the  men  of 
the  city  and  of  his  vital  interest  in  all  that  pertained  to 
municipal  life.  As  is  usual,  the  meetings  of  the  city 
commissioners  did  not  always  run  smoothly,  but  he 
was  soon  known  as  the  oiler,  and  many  a  wordy  war 
was  saved  by  an  interjection  of  some  remark  of  his, 
which  dissipated  differences  of  opinion.  If  this  might 
be  called  a  political  appointment,  though  there  was  no 
ground  for  such  a  term,  it  is  the  only  one  of  the  kind 
that  he  ever  occupied,  and  he  accepted  it  because  of  his 
personal  friendship  for  Mr.  William  H.  Vedder,  who 
was  then  Mayor  of  the  City  of  Pasadena. 

His  evident  delight  in  this  appointment  reveals 
itself  in  a  letter  to  an  old  time  newspaper  friend : 

DEAR  MAN: 

Yes,  I  got  paper  which  was  all  right  and  good,  and  your 
letter,  which  was  a  hundred  times  better. 
314 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

You  are  "doing  a  preaching  stunt"?  Did  you  just  find  it 
out?  You  blessed  old  fellow — your  whole  life  has  been  a 
gospel  of  good  cheer,  and  patience  and  hope  and  courage. 
Your  life  has  been  and  is  an  evangel  of  manhood  and  manliness. 
I  love  every  bone  in  your  great  big  body! 

Yours  as  ever, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 
Pastor  Temple  Baptist  Church,  Los  Angeles. 
Police  Commissioner  1 
Park  "  \  Pasadena. 

Fire  J 

Everybody  takes  the  hat  off  to  ME! 

His  sixtieth  birthday  was  the  occasion  for  many 
congratulations  and  felicitations  from  old  friends  and 
new,  and  the  ten  years  following  that  were  among  his 
ripest  and  mellowest  in  kindly  contemplation,  serene 
and  joyous  expectation  of  future  usefulness. 

To  an  inquiry  sent  him  as  to  how  it  felt  to  be  sixty, 
he  made  this  reply: 

Well,  my  boy,  it  feels  rather  crowded.  There  are  so  many 
more  people  in  the  world  than  there  were  when  I  took  up  my 
homestead  claim.  When  I  landed  on  this  planet,  there  wasn't 
a  soul  in  Los  Angeles  that  I  would  go  across  the  street  to  shake 
hands  with.  (There  was  no  city  of  Los  Angeles,  in  fact.) 

"A  great  many  old  people  say  they  feel  just  as  young  at 
sixty  as  they  did  at  twenty.  Is  it  that  way  with  you?" 

Not  by  forty  happy  years,  my  boy.  No  man  and  fewer 
women,  can  be  as  young  at  sixty  as  at  twenty.  When  I  enter 
a  room  now,  I  instinctively  select  the  chair  I  want  to  sit  in.  I 
pick  out  the  one  that  is  the  easiest  to  get  out  of.  For  it  takes 
me  longer  to  get  up  than  it  did  at  twenty.  I  do  not  love  the 
kind-hearted,  stupid  people  who  insist  on  my  sitting  down  in  a 
cavernous  easy  chair  with  a  backward  inclination  and  a  foot 
rest  which  I  cannot  reach.  For  then  there  is  a  life-and-death 
struggle  when  I  would  emerge.  I  find  myself  agreeing  with  the 
Arab  philosopher,  "It  is  easier  to  walk  than  to  run,  to  stand 
still  than  to  walk,  to  sit  down  than  to  stand,  to  lie  down  than 
to  sit  up,  to  sleep  than  to  wake." 

315 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

"But  you  are  still  very  vigorous?" 

Oh,  I  do  my  daily  stunts.  But  I  don't  rush  at  my  work 
with  a  war-whoop,  as  I  used  to.  I  have  a  stroke  of  paralysis 
every  day,  right  after  my  noontime  dinner.  It  lasts  about  an 
hour  and  is  incurable.  I  break  and  lose  more  spectacles  every 
week  than  I  used  to  break  in  five  years — when  I  didn't  wear 
any.  I  can  hear  a  great  deal  better  than  I  did  in  younger  days. 
For  I  can't  hear  a  thing  with  my  left  ear,  and  I  use  that — oh, 
very,  very  often — to  rest  the  one  I  can  hear  with.  So,  though 
I  don't  hear  so  much,  I  hear  a  great  deal  better.  Much  better. 

"Is  there  as  much  fun  in  the  world  as  there  used  to  be?" 

More;  a  great  deal  more.  Because  there  are  more  people 
in  it.  And  people  are  the  funniest  things  this  side  of  the  grave. 
Monkeys  tire  me,  but  people  amuse  me.  Yes,  there  is  more  fun 
in  the  world  than  there  used  to  be.  And  more  sorrow  and 
trouble,  and  care,  and  heartache.  And  more  goodness,  and 
love  and  gentleness,  and  kindness.  And  the  laughter,  and 
sweetness,  and  gentleness  has  multiplied  far  more  rapidly  than 
the  trouble. 

"Would  you  like  to  be  young  again?" 

Indeed  I  would,  my  boy.  And  I'm  going  to  be — when  I 
get  to  be  about  ten  or  twenty  years  older.  But  I  don't  want 
to  be  young  again  in  this  world.  Because  then  I  would  grow 
old  again.  It  is  a  sign  of  weakness — intellectual,  physical  and 
moral  weakness — to  want  to  be  younger  in  this  life.  A  man 
ought  to  be  ashamed  to  have  such  a  feeling.  One  of  our  boys, 
Robert,  once  wrote  to  me  on  one  of  my  birthdays:  "A  man's 
years  are  his  retainers,  and  the  more  birthdays  he  has  the 
stronger  and  greater  is  his  following."  That's  about  the  way 
it  feels  to  be  sixty. 

AT  60 

"Halt!"  cry  the  bugles,  down  the  column's  length; 
And  nothing  loath  to  halt  and  rest  am  I. 

For  summer  heat  hath  somewhat  taxed  my  strength, 
And  long  the  dusty  ways  before  me  lie. 

The  dew  that  glittered  when  the  echoing  horn 

Called  reveille  to  greet  the  waking  day, 
The  cool  sweet  shadows  of  the  cheery  morn, 

The  birds  that  trilled  the  bugles'  roundelay. 
316 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

Heated  and  hushed  seems  now  the  balmy  air, 
So  soon  its  songs  and  pleasant  shadows  passed; 

Our  ambushed  foes  lurked  in  each  woodland  fair, 
On  every  smiling  plain  we  found  them  massed. 

The  light  young  heart  that  made  a  jest  of  life 
And  laughed  at  death  when  we  broke  camp  at  dawn, 

Changed  are  their  merry  songs  for  shouts  of  strife, 
Or  hushed  where  valor  mourns  a  comrade  gone. 

And  loitering  here  awhile  at  "rest  at  ease", 

I  note  the  shadows  falling  to  the  east; 
Behind  me,  plume  crowned,  looms  the  hill  whose  trees 

At  daybreak  promised  love,  and  joy  and  peace; 

Beckoned  us  on,  when  morning  time  was  bright, 

To  certainty  of  victory  and  rest; 
And  now — 'tis  afternoon;  'twill  soon  be  night, 

And  I  have  passed  the  green  hill's  waving  crest. 

"Forward!"  the  bugles  call;  ready  am  I; 

For  though  my  step  has  lost  its  springing  gait, 
I  am  more  prompt  to  march,  and  to  obey. 

Less  apt  to  question  and  to  hesitate. 

Yet,  when  some  belted  trooper  gallops  by, 
I  lift  my  eyes,  warned  by  the  swift  hoofs'  tramp, 

And  hail  him,  with  the  infantryman's  cry, 

"Ho,  Comrade!  tell  me,  how  far  is't  to  camp?" 

The  summer  of  1905  was  again  spent  in  Europe, 
our  younger  son  accompanying  us.  Mr.  Burdette  went 
as  delegate  to  the  World  Conference  of  the  Baptist 
Church  in  London,  where  he  was  a  conspicuous  figure 
in  the  conference,  preaching  in  the  pulpits  of  the  London 
Baptist  Churches.  He  often  referred  to  an  English 
custom  which  called  upon  him  to  read  from  the  pulpit 
of  Shoreditch  Chapel,  Sunday,  July  15, 1905,  the  follow 
ing  notice: 

317 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

"Mrs.  Henery  wishes  to  return  thanks  to  God  for 
safe  deliverance",  commenting  that  children  would  be 
better  born  if  all  mothers  were  willing  to  publicly  thank 
God  for  them. 

The  trip  at  this  time  was  confined  to  England  and 
France  and  he  returned  to  take  up  his  work  at  Temple 
Church  in  the  fall. 

When  we  passed  through  Chicago  on  our  return 
from  abroad,  we  stopped  to  see  "the  tribe ",  especially 
Mollie,  who  was  not  well.  Anxiety  filled  our  hearts  as 
we  journeyed  across  the  continent,  and  was  not  lessened 
as  the  days  went  by.  Mr.  Burdette  was  devotedly 
attached  to  her,  as  his  frequent  letters  to  he  through  the 
years  had  proven.  When  the  message  came  that  she 
had  passed  on,  he  went  to  his  study,  closed  the  door  and 
sought  the  comfort  he  had  so  often  suggested  to  those 
who  had  mourned.  Then  to  his  father  he  wrote: 

SUNNYCREST,   PASADENA,   CAL. 

DEAR  FATHER:  Saturday. 

(  cannot  write  today.  I  cannot  see  the  page  and  the  pen 
trails  away  by  itself.  The  house  is  quiet  and  lonesome  and 
still,  as  though  she  had  passed  away  from  our  own  doors,  here 
at  Sunnycrest. 

Violet  had  planned  a  little  home  out  here  for  her.  She 
was  going  to  build  a  little  cottage  for  her,  down  by  the  sea, 
this  winter,  which  should  be  her  home  for  the  quiet  "  afternoon 
years".  And  the  Father  has  taken  her  to  her  own  home. 

I  did  not  realize  how  much  she  filled  my  life.  I  look  for 
her  now  in  the  rooms  of  this  house,  as  I  would  not  look  if  I 
know  she  were  yet  in  the  land  of  the  living.  I  find  myself 
looking  into  the  door  of  an  empty  room,  as  though  I  half 
expected  to  see  her.  Then  she  must  be  nearer  to  me  now  than 
she  was  before  she  went  away. 

You  cannot  see  the  dear  dead  face.     Nor  can  I.     Then 
she  will  never  seem  dead  to  us.     We  will  be  expecting  to  see 
her,  to  hear  her.    And  then,  some  day,  we  will. 
318 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

I  cannot  write.  I  can  only  look  out  at  the  mountains  and 
wonder  what  it  is  that  has  happened  to  change  all  the  world 
in  an  hour.  Only  a  few  minutes  ago  I  answered  a  telegram 
from  a  man  in  Peoria.  He  had  heard  that  some  one  dear  to 
him  in  Pasadena  was  dead.  He  wired  me,  in  his  fear,  to  find 
out  for  him,  tho'  he  is  a  stranger  to  me.  I  wired  back  to  him — 
"She  is  well."  And  while  I  prayed  to  hear  good  news  from 
Mollie,  the  telegraph  tells  me — "She  is  dead." 

God  give  you  peace — peace  to  all  the  households  of  her 
kin  that  loved  her  so. 

I  am  not  coming  East.  The  day  when  my  coming  could 
have  helped  her  has  passed.  If  I  have  not  written  my  love  on 
the  days  that  have  gone,  it  is  but  little  use  or  need  to  speak  it 
now.  Living,  she  knew  well  how  dearly  I  loved  her.  She 
knows  it  even  better  now. 

During  the  spring  of  1908,  he  wrote  to  his  sister  Jo: 
We  are  circumnavigating  the  old  mill  pond  the  same  old 
way,  with  every  hour  of  the  day  filled  in.  I  had  a  very  stren 
uous  time  yesterday  afternoon,  a  trouble  that  focussed  upon 
the  foolishest  and  uselessest  thing  of  all  things  to  do;  the 
writing  of  an  anonymous  letter.  I  began  with  two  of  the  people 
involved,  in  my  study,  and  sent  for  one  after  another  until 
there  were  seven  prosecutors  and  defendants,  changing  sides 
from  time  to  time  as  new  evidence  was  introduced.  It  was  a 
very  stormy,  trying  four  hours,  but  before  I  let  go  of  them,  I 
had  secured  the  necessary  amount  of  admissions  and  conces 
sions,  made  them  all  shake  hands,  delivered  seven  personal 
and  one  general  little  lecture,  and  sent  them  away,  all  happy 
and  relieved,  five  of  them  smiling,  two  of  them  weeping.  Guess 
how  many  women  there  were! 

So  you  may  know  what  a  relief  it  was  to  go  in  the  evening 
to  a  very  beautiful  reception  at  the  opening  of  the  Valley  Hunt 
Club,  where  everybody  had  on  their  "glad  rags",  where  every 
body  was  smiling,  where  the  rooms  were  noisy  with  the  din  of 
happiness,  real  or  assumed,  and  merrymaking,  music  and 
dancing.  Considering  what  I  had  crawled  through  in  the 
afternoon,  I  felt  like  the  Prodigal  Son,  and,  of  course,  took 
all  the  music  and  dancing  and  merrymaking  to  myself.  I  know 
there  was,  even  in  that  concourse  of  happy  people,  heartache 

319 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  concealed  pain,  and,  no  doubt,  the  usual  amount  of  human 
jealousy,  but  it  was  not  on  the  surface  and  I  did  not  see  it  and 
I  did  not  think  about  it,  and  if  I  had  not  been  an  old  man 
and  a  minister  of  the  gospel,  I  would  have  danced.  Then  the 
rooms  would  have  been  cleared. 

Why  is  it  that  the  people  who  have  most  need  of  dancing, 
who  dwell  every  day  of  the  week  with  human  sorrow  and  sin 
and  foolishness  and  weakness  and  trouble,  are  not  permitted 
by  the  frowns  of  society  to  dance  the  most?  When  I  get  to 
Heaven,  where  we  can  do  as  we  please,  if  any  angel  strikes  up  a 
strain  of  "rag-time"  on  a  harp,  you  will  see  your  old  brother 
tripping  it  down  the  golden  street.  I  find  I  am  growing 
unministerial. 

As  the  following  summer  approached  the  need  of 
rest  and  change  developed  into  a  short  trip  to  Europe, 
but  one  of  great  delight  to  Mr.  Burdette,  as  it  was  our 
first  trip  to  Ireland.  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  had  been 
the  delight  of  his  early  boyhood,  and  many  and  many 
a  time  had  it  furnished  a  topic,  an  illustration  or  a 
quotation  for  his  later  literary  work.  His  diary  for 
July  22,  1908,  was  headed: 

In  Bunyan  Land.  At  Elstow,  where  John  Bunyan  lived 
a  few  years  after  his  marriage.  On  to  the  Moathouse  in  Elstow 
Green,  where  Bunyan  used  to  preach.  Sat  in  his  pulpit  seat. 
Full  of  drawers.  One  old  bench — original  in  "tiny  children's 
room".  Elstow  Church,  where  Bunyan  used  to  ring  the  bell — 
climbed  the  steep  winding  stairs  to  belfry — 48  of  them  with 
very  high  falls.  Both  of  us  probably  lamed  for  life.  Loitered 
across  village  green,  where  Bunyan  used  to  play  "tit-cat"  on 
Sunday  and  where  he  was  converted.  Back  to  Bedford.  Saw 
the  old  jail  steps.  Visited  Bunyan  Baptist  Meeting  House, 
where  are  his  sixty  books  in  early  edition — "  Pilgrim's  Progress" 
in  108  languages.  Bought  six  copies  of  "Pilgrim's  Progress" 
published  by  Elstow  Meeting.  My  fondest  boyhood  dreams 
did  not  dare  to  picture  me  enjoying  such  a  rare  day  fifty  years 
hence. 

320 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

On  his  sixty-fourth  birthday  he  was  in  Ireland  and 
wrote  a  characteristic  letter  to  a  friend,  a  deacon  of 
Temple  Baptist  Church,  breathing  the  same  sane 
philosophy: 

THE  SOUTHERN  HOTEL, 
WATERVILLE  (COUNTY  KERRY),  IRELAND, 

July  30th,  1908. 
MY  DEAR  DR.  DOZIER: 

I  woke  up  this  morning  with  the  feeling  upon  me  that  my 
figure  had  altered  during  the  night.  And  upon  taking  my  tem 
perature  with  the  calendar,  I  found  that  my  diagnosis  was  cor 
rect.  I  was  63  when  I  went  to  bed  last  night,  and  this  morning 
I  am  64.  However,  the  change  is  perfectly  normal  and  I  know 
it  will  never  happen  again.  It  will  be  something  else  the  next 
time. 

Well,  I  am  well  satisfied  to  grow  old.  As  the  woman  said 
about  her  husband's  being  resigned  to  die,  "He  has  to  be". 
I  have  no  desire  to  be  younger,  and  I  wouldn't  want  to  live 
my  life  over,  if  I  was  offered  the  chance.  I  haven't  made  the 
best  of  it  I  could  have  done,  but  I  have  lived  it.  The  "after 
noon  land"  has  been  very  pleasant  to  me;  I  am  sure  that  "at 
evening  time  it  will  be  light",  and  I  will  be  glad  to  see  the 
morning  dawn,  for  that  will  begin  the  new  life — the  only  new 
opportunity  for  living  better  that  we  will  have. 

Give  my  birthday  greeting  to  my  "dear  children",  and 
say  to  them  they  have  never  put  one  white  hair  in  my  head, 
nor  an  ache  into  my  heart.  They  have  been,  and  they  are, 
a  daily  joy  to  me.  They  are  the  light  of  my  evening  time. 
Morning  and  evening  do  I  thank  God  for  bringing  them  into 
my  life.  "  My  dearly  beloved,  my  joy  and  my  crown."  God 
bless  you,  every  one. 

Affectionately  your  Pastor, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

From  the  time  he  began  newspaper  work  upon  the 
Peoria  Transcript  in  the  late  60's  until  the  end  of  his 
life  he  was  never  without  a  newspaper  connection. 
These  included  Peoria  Transcript,  Peoria  Review,  Bur- 

21  321 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

lington  Hawk-Eye,  Brooklyn  Eagle,  Philadelphia  Times 
and  finally  the  Los  Angeles  Times. 

His  contributions  to  the  Times  began  not  long  after 
he  came  to  California  in  1899,  and  continued  to  within 
a  few  months  of  his  death. 

His  first  contributions  were  to  the  Times  Magazine, 
and  were  in  the  style  of  his  usual  humorous  philosophy. 
In  1900,  when  he  made  his  first  trip  to  Europe,  he  made 
an  agreement  with  the  Times  to  write  his  impressions  in 
a  weekly  letter  to  the  Magazine.  After  his  retirement 
from  the  active  pulpit  of  Temple  Baptist  Church,  he 
was  asked  by  the  Times  to  become  its  pastor  and  occupy 
the  column  pulpit  in  the  daily  newspaper,  and  while 
there  was  never  any  formal  acceptance  of  the  offer,  he 
continued  through  many  years  to  contribute  a  column 
two  or  three  times  each  week. 

His  relation  with  the  Times  staff  was  always  the 
same  inspiring,  genial  and  delightful  one  that  made  him 
beloved  of  the  Hawk-Eye  in  the  early  days  of  his  news 
paper  work.  There  was  always  a  cordial  and  affection 
ate  relation  between  him  and  General  Harrison  Gray 
Otis,  the  owner  of  the  Times,  and  this  is  indicated  in 
many  letters  that  passed  between  them  touching  on 
topics  of  common  interest,  and  in  their  frequent 
exchanges  of  personal  courtesies. 

On  October  1,  1910,  the  Times  Building  was  de 
stroyed  by  an  explosion  of  dynamite,  the  explosion 
planned  and  carried  out  by  part  of  the  band  of  dyna 
miting  union  labor  leaders  because  of  the  hatred 
incurred  by  the  Times  for  its  persistent  and  insistent 
fight  for  the  open  shop.  Fire  followed  immediately 
upon  the  explosion,  and  twenty-one  employees  of  the 
Times  lost  their  lives  in  the  tragedy. 

Within  an  hour  after  the  awful  disaster,  some  mem- 
322 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

ber  of  the  Times  staff  telephoned  the  house  to  ask  Mr. 
Burdette  and  myself  to  come  to  Los  Angeles,  but  the 
message  was  not  responded  to  until  daylight,  when  a 
second  telephone  message  brought  to  my  consciousness 
the  conditions  in  Los  Angeles.  Mr.  Burdette  was 
spending  the  night  in  Riverside,  and  so  he  did  not  get 
the  communication. 

I  got  in  my  machine  soon  after  daybreak  and  went 
to  Los  Angeles,  going  first  to  the  Receiving  Hospital, 
where  I  saw  arranged  in  various  cots  some  of  the  victims 
of  that  awful  disaster.  Upon  inquiring,  I  found  there 
were  others  at  the  various  hospitals,  and  I  went  at  once 
to  the  Clara  Barton  Hospital,  where  Arlie  Elder,  the 
friend  of  my  son  Roy,  was  dying.  I  remained  there  to 
give  such  assistance  to  the  family  as  was  possible,  and 
then  began  the  rounds  of  the  other  hospitals. 

General  Otis,  who  was  on  his  way  home  from  a  trip 
to  Mexico,  reached  Los  Angeles  about  two  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  and  together  with  two  or  three  members 
of  the  Times  staff,  and  the  family,  I  went  to  the  South 
ern  Pacific  Depot  to  meet  him.  With  his  characteristic 
unrelentless  vigor,  and  stirred  by  deepest  sympathy  for 
those  who  had  suffered,  he  stepped  to  the  platform  of 
the  car,  and  before  he  descended,  raising  his  right  hand 
and  extending  his  other  to  the  crowd,  he  said  in  a  most 
dramatic  voice,  "The  fight  will  still  go  on!"  Fearless 
as  ever,  he  returned  to  his  home,  to  which  private 
detectives  were  soon  called  because  of  a  suspicious 
package  found  under  the  window  of  his  own  residence, 
and  which,  taken  to  the  middle  of  the  street  and 
exploded,  proved  to  be  another  attempt  made  upon 
his  personal  life. 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Burdette  returned  to  Pasadena,  we 
again  took  up  the  rounds  where  sympathy  was  needed, 

323 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

and  through  those  trying  hours  and  days  he  proved 
himself  again  the  comforter  and  the  good  soldier  that 
he  was,  absolutely  fearless.  The  matter  of  conducting 
the  services  for  the  dead  was  a  very  serious  undertaking 
at  a  time  when  all  Los  Angeles  was  stirred,  some  with 
feelings  of  revenge,  and  others  with  a  criminal  deter 
mination  to  still  continue  their  dastardly  work. 

I  well  remember  the  morning  he  went  to  his  study 
to  prepare  the  oration  which  was  to  be  held  in  Temple 
Auditorium,  in  a  pulpit  where  love  and  sympathy  and 
salvation  had  been  the  continued  theme.  He  went 
with  an  earnest  prayer  in  his  heart  that  he  might  be 
just  to  all,  comforting  to  those  who  needed  it,  sympa 
thetic  with  the  weakness  and  foolishness  of  those  who 
needed  sympathy,  fearless  of  those  who  under  their 
strained  mental  condition  might  seek  to  do  further 
harm.  As  can  be  well  understood,  all  were  under 
special  strain. 

We  who  were  responsible  for  conditions  of  the 
Auditorium  had  it  thoroughly  guarded  and  inspected, 
for  of  course  there  was  to  be  gathered  on  this  occasion 
all  who  sympathized  with  the  Times.  Trained  nurses 
were  provided  to  look  after  those  who  might  need  them, 
and  with  a  hush  and  bated  breath  the  audience  gath 
ered.  Gen.  Adna  R.  Chaffee,  retired,  my  personal 
friend,  asked  to  sit  with  me  in  my  box,  not  knowing 
what  might  happen. 

On  the  stage  were  fourteen  gray  caskets,  all  but  lost 
in  a  wilderness  of  flowers  and  flags,  the  offerings  of  the 
people.  As  Mr.  Burdette,  revered  by  the  Times  men  as 
though  he  were  their  formal  chaplain,  stepped  on  to  the 
platform,  he  never  seemed  more  serene,  more  coura 
geous.  His  voice,  tender,  yet  strong,  lacking  nothing  in 
fire,  yet  full  of  solace,  with  a  heart  vibrant  in  its  sym- 
324 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

pathy  for  the  living  even  as  it  bled  with  grief  for  those 
that  were  gone,  Mr.  Burdette  delivered  a  most  masterly 
oration.  This  was  afterwards  emblazoned  in  bronze  on 
the  monument  that  stands  as  monitor  over  the  remains 
of  the  victims  of  the  disaster,  the  oration  being  headed, 
"Sons  of  Duty",  with  these  verifying  words:  "From 
the  thrilling  discourse  pronounced  by  Rev.  Robert  J. 
Burdette  of  'Ours'  over  the  lifeless  fragments  of  the 
victims/' 

High  tide  in  a  sea  that  washes  every  shore  of  the  world — a 
tide  whose  searching  fingers  with  the  sensitive  touch  of  the 
blind  reach  wherever  water  runs  or  the  sun  shines — the  great 
pulsing  tide  of  human  events  that  men  call  "news"  and  the 
world-circling  brotherhood  of  the  press  calls  "The  Story". 
Clicking  off  the  keys  of  a  thousand  wires  from  a  thousand 
centers  of  interest;  wig- wagging  from  the  fighting  tops  of  the 
battleships  of  all  nations;  the  all-beholding  sun,  serving  his 
apprenticeship  to  the  new  service  of  the  press,  flashing  his 
helios  from  the  signal  station  cf  the  armies  of  the  world ;  sema 
phores  repeating  the  tale  of  scientific  and  exploring  expeditions 
across  the  deserts — all  the  news  of  Babel,  translated  into  the 
Morse  alphabet,  thronging  with  more  tongues  than  Rumor 
into  the  busy  rooms  of  the  Times. 

Midnight,  and  at  editorial  desks  in  news  rooms,  at  the 
cases  of  the  compositors  and  the  machines  of  the  linotypers, 
at  the  key  of  the  Western  Union  and  Postal  Telegraphs,  down 
in  the  press  room,  under  the  strong  lights  of  the  engravers' 
tables — everywhere  Life,  exultant,  joyous,  abundant.  Men  and 
women  happy  in  their  work;  enthusiastic  in  their  occupation. 

Turn  of  the  tide.  The  hour  of  the  midnight  passing  the 
glittering  battalions  of  the  constellations  in  review.  Orderly 
march  of  the  stars,  crossing  the  zenith,  ending  the  journey  of 
Yesterday,  beginning  the  campaign  of  Today,  still  moving 
toward  the  ever-vanishing  camp  of  Tomorrow.  The  hand  of 
the  Mighty  Angel  who  keeps  the  calendar  of  God  tore  off  the 
page  dated  "Friday,  September  30th,  1910",  and  revealed, 
white  and  clean,  unsullied  as  the  petals  of  the  lily  of  the  resur 
rection,  "Saturday,  October  1st" — the  newest,  purest,  happiest 

325 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

day  in  the  old,  old  world,  a  gift  from  the  hand  of  God,  ready 
for  this  world  of  men  to  write  the  story  of  the  new  day  on  the 
tablets  of  history  in  such  characters  of  light  or  darkness  as 
they  would. 

It  is  the  turn  of  the  Tide.  "One  o'clock  and  a  pleasant 
morning.  All's  Well!"  called  the  Angel  of  the  Watch. 

Duty,  eldest  daughter  of  God,  passed  along  the  lines  of 
men  standing  at  their  appointed  posts  in  the  world  of  toil 
and  struggle,  doing  the  bidding  of  the  great  Master  Workman 
with  the  hands  and  brains  and  hearts  of  working  men.  Clad 
in  the  uniform  of  God's  workers,  the  garb  of  workingmen, 
their  hands  holding  the  implements  of  trade  and  profession — 
wage-earners  and  bread  winners,  every  one.  Gathering  from 
the  ends  of  the  earth  and  shaping  for  the  intelligence  of  men 
the  story  of  the  day — the  news  of  the  world;  its  deeds,  its 
hopes,  its  fears,  its  pleasures  and  ambitions,  its  triumphs  and 
defeats,  its  loyalty  and  treacheries,  its  worship  and  its  blas 
phemies;  the  story  of  how  men  were  keeping  faith  with  God, 
or  violating  His  first  commission,  when  He  placed  man  in  Eden 
— when  all  the  world  was  Eden — with  the  command  to  dress 
the  garden  and  to  keep  it  fair — to  keep  it  for  God. 

Even  God  cannot  keep  His  world  without  the  yoke  fellow 
ship  of  men.  Sings  Elizabeth  Browning  for  the  great  violin 
maker: 

"Should  my  hand  slack,  I  would  rob  God; 
He  could  not  make  Antonio  Stradivarius'  violins 
Without  Antonio." 

Duty  walked  down  the  busy  line  of  these  sons  of  fidelity. 
She  called  the  roll  of  honor  beside  the  cradle  of  the  new-born 
day. 

"Churchill  Harvey-Elder,  assistant  city  editor;  J.Wesley 
Reaves,  private  secretary  to  Harry  Chandler;  Harry  L.  Crane, 
assistant  telegraph  editor;  R.  L.  Sawyer,  telegraph  operator; 
John  Howard,  compositor." 

And  one  by  one,  with  voices  clear  and  steady,  the  men 
answered : 

"Here!" 

And  Duty  went  on  calling  the  roll: 

"J.  C.  Galliher,  linotype  operator;  Grant  Moore,  machin 
ist;  Edward  Wasson,  compositor;  Elmer  Frink,  linotype  oper- 
326 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

ator;  Eugene  Caress,  linotype  operator;  Frank  Underwood, 
compositor;  Fred  Llewellyn,  linotype  operator." 

One  by  one  the  men  lifted  their  heads  from  their  work  and 
answered  in  tones  strong  and  confident: 

"Here!" 

Again  Duty  called  the  names  of  the  relief  on  guard: 

"Charles  Haggerty,  pressman;  Charles  Gulliver,  composi 
tor;  Carl  Sallada,  linotype  operator;  Howard  Cordaway,  lino 
type  operator;  Don  E.  Johnson,  linotype  operator;  Harry  L. 
Flynn,  linotype  operator;  W.  G.  Tunstall,  linotype  operator. 

Clear  and  strong  came  the  voices  of  the  men: 

"Here!" 

And  Duty  reported  to  the  Heavenly  Father — the  Great 
Master  Workman: 

"Every  man  in  his  place  in  the  ranks.  Every  man  in  the 
uniform  of  God's  workmen — the  garb  of  a  workingman,  with 
the  weapons  of  his  service,  the  implements  of  his  trade  and 
calling  in  his  hand.  Each  man  fully  equipped  with  the  gifts 
of  God  for  his  appointed  work — clear  brain,  skilful  hand, 
faithful  heart.  Each  man  earning  his  daily  bread  with  his 
daily  toil.  'As  the  Father  worketh  hitherto',  and  as  Jesus  the 
Son  wrought  at  his  earthly  task  until  he  could  cry,  'It  is  fin 
ished  ',  so  these  children  of  Duty  serve  at  their  appointed  tasks 
until  He  who  gave  them  toil  shall  call  them  to  rest." 

"Know  they  that  they  work  amid  unseen  perils?" 

"They  know,"  replied  Duty,  "but  of  that  they  speak  not. 
They  know  they  eat  their  bread  on  the  smouldering  crater  of  a 
volcano,  but  of  that  they  speak  not.  Their  hands  are  steady; 
laughter  falls  sometimes  from  their  lips;  courage  throbs  in 
their  hearts.  They  have  their  commission  of  Thee,  and  they 
ask  no  more.  In  this  consciousness,  0  Mighty  Father,  they 
'stand  sure,  stand  fast,  stand  firm,  stand  true'.  It  is  the  blazon 
on  the  standard  of  the  journal  in  whose  ranks  they  serve." 

High  and  clear,  like  a  herald  trumpeting  the  advent  of  the 
new  day  with  the  prophecy  of  hope,  rang  the  voice  of  the 
Angels  of  the  Watch: 

"One  o'clock  and  ten  minutes!  A  pleasant  morning! 
All's  Well!" 

Crash  and  thunder  of  the  forces  of  destruction.  Roaring 
of  the  powers  of  murder  and  red-handed  anarchy.  The  purple 

327 


ROBERT  J.    BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

night  is  polluted  with  the  lurid  flames  leaping  from  the  abyss 
of  horror.  The  silver  stars  are  eclipsed  by  the  clouds  of  stran 
gling  smoke.  The  swaying  walls  fall  inward,  crackling  with  the 
flames;  set  on  fire  by  fiendish  hate — by  the  crawling  cowardice 
of  assassination.  The  night  shrills  with  awe  and  terror. 

The  eyes  that  see  the  awful  holocaust  pray  for  blindness 
to  shield  them  from  the  spectacle.  The  ears  that  hear  the 
screams  for  help,  thrilled  with  death  agony,  pray  for  deafness 
to  shut  out  all  sounds  that  affright  the  night.  Earth  yawns 
to  hide  the  terror.  Angels  look  over  the  battlements  of  heaven 
in  wondering  amaze  that  such  chaos  of  sin  and  crime  might 
be  in  the  world  for  which  Christ  died.  Hell  itself  shudders 
with  fear  at  the  sight  of  the  hell  more  terrible  than  its  own 
flaming  dungeons  which  its  emissary  had  kindled  on  earth. 

And  in  the  midst  of  this,  men  tell  us  to  be  calm,  and  to 
"suspend  judgment".  But  to  most  men,  God  gave  red  blood 
instead  of  ice  water  for  their  pulsing  veins  and  human  hearts. 
Did  you  see  young  Howard,  keeping  his  vigil  of  forty  hours 
watching  on  the  crumbling  brink  of  that  awful  pit  of  death  at 
First  and  Broadway  for  his  father,  noting  every  warped  and 
twisted  beam  of  steel  dragged  from  above  the  bodies  of  the 
dead,  watching  the  sifting  of  every  spadeful  of  cinders,  until 
at  last  the  workmen  uncovered  what  had  been  his  father? 

Stand  beside  him,  fasting,  yet  not  knowing  hunger,  unsleep 
ing  yet  unwearied;  and  ask  him  to  "suspend  judgment!"  Go 
to  these  mourners  here  today,  whose  aching  hearts  cannot  know 
until  the  great  judgment  day  which  casket  of  gray  holds  the 
dust  dearer  to  them  than  their  lives,  ask  them  to  be  judicial  in 
act,  justice  to  all  in  their  hearts!  Not  twenty-four  hours  ago, 
some  man  barking  at  the  heels  of  the  mourners,  publicly  cen 
sured  the  "exasperating  attitude  of  the  Times". 

The  exasperating  attitude  of  the  Times!  What  is  its 
attitude?  Standing  here  today,  a  fellow-mourner  with  this 
immense  concourse  of  mourners.  Its  body  draped  with  the 
coarse  sackcloth  of  woe;  its  face  veiled  with  the  fold  of  crepe 
which  hides  its  tear-blinded  eyes  as  it  bows  itself  in  speechless 
anguish  above  its  dead.  Look  upon  this  circle  of  caskets, 
jewel  cases  of  precious  dust — whom  does  this  scene  "  exasper 
ate"?  I  tell  you,  there  are  men  sitting  here  beside  the  wives 
and  children  and  the  fellow-workmen  of  these  heroic  dead,  their 
328 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

comrades  and  yours — Harry  Andrews,  Harry  Chandler,  Gen. 
Harrison  Gray  Otis — each  one  of  whom  would  give  his  own  life 
to  call  back  to  desk  and  case,  to  machine  and  press,  these  dead 
who  died  at  their  posts. 

Once  more  Duty  marshals  her  guard  before  the  Great 
Commander.  Once  more  she  calls  the  roll  of  fidelity. 

"Are  they  all  here?" 

Every  man.  Not  one  shirked  his  duty.  Not  one  fled  from 
his  post.  To  the  immortal  glory  of  the  dead,  and  the  honor  of 
the  living,  not  one  woman  who  wrought  at  her  task  in  that 
building  perished.  In  the  wild  storm  of  fear  and  death  there 
was  no  panic.  The  strong  helped  the  weak.  The  brave  en 
couraged  the  fearful.  The  calm  soothed  the  nervous.  Those 
who  escaped  live  with  honor.  Those  who  died  stand  here  in 
their  ranks  to  answer  their  names,  robed  in  the  white  garments 
of  victory;  all  marks  of  pain  gone  from  their  faces;  the  calloused 
palms  of  toil  soft  already  with  the  tranquility  of  their  rest. 
Every  man  whose  name  was  called  on  earth,  has  answered 
"here"  before  the  throne. 

Fragrant  with  honor  be  their  names  forever.  Green  as 
the  palms  that  will  wave  above  them  in  Hollywood  be  their 
memories.  Everlasting  peace  be  to  the  lives  that  suffered. 
God's  will — his  righteous  will — his  will  of  justice — be  done. 

When  brutal  feet  are  trampling 
Upon  the  common  weal, 

Thou  dost  not  bid  us  bend  and  writhe 
Beneath  the  iron  heel; 

In  Thy  name  we  assert  our  right- 
By  sword,  or  tongue,  or  pen, 

Even  the  headsman's  ax  may  flash 
Thy  message  unto  men. 

Thy  will,  It  bids  the  weak  be  strong, 

It  bids  the  strong  be  just; 
No  lip  to  fawn,  no  hand  to  beg, 

No  brow  to  seek  the  dust. 
Wherever  man  oppresses  man 

Beneath  Thy  liberal  sun, 
Oh,  Lord,  be  there  Thine  arm  made  bare, 

Thy  righteous  will  be  done, 

329 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

When  the  procession  moved  away  from  Temple 
Auditorium,  guarded  as  it  was  by  a  platoon  of  police, 
to  the  corner  of  Hill  and  Fifth  Street,  where  there  was 
waiting  a  line  of  street  cars,  one  for  each  casket  and  the 
friends,  there  was  never  seen  probably  in  all  the  world 
such  a  funeral  procession  as  those  trolley  cars  to  Holly 
wood  Cemetery,  and  the  little  man,  with  his  courage, 
fearlessness  of  speech,  heart  filled  with  sympathy  and 
love,  might  be  said  to  have  been  the  central  figure  of  it 
all.  It  was  one  of  the  greatest  efforts  of  his  life,  and 
several  days  followed  before  he  could  return  to  the 
normal  activities,  so  stirred  was  he  with  the  sense  of 
cruel  injustice  to  the  innocent,  his  thankfulness  that 
our  own  son  Roy  who  had  but  recently  left  the  Times, 
was  not  one  of  the  victims,  and  his  outspoken  condem 
nation  of  the  spirit  which  had  made  this  possible. 

On  November  15,  1911,  in  the  cemetery  at  Holly 
wood,  a  granite  memorial  by  the  Times  in  memory  of 
its  martyred  dead,  was  dedicated,  and  as  chaplain  of 
the  Times,  Dr.  Burdette  delivered  the  dedicatory 
oration: 

"It  is  the  cause/'  said  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  "and  not  the 
death  that  makes  the  martyr".  For  the  mere  fact  of  death 
is  a  thing  common  to  all  men,  hero  and  coward,  saint  and  sin 
ner,  patriot  and  traitor.  But  now  and  again  in  the  great 
crises  of  Time,  when  the  thought  of  the  selfish  world  is  set  on 
common  things  like  wealth  and  fame,  and  pleasure,  God  calls 
for  his  reserves — a  man  or  a  platoon  of  the  7000  that  have 
not  bent  the  knee  to  Baal,  to  stand  forth  and  die  nobly, 
splendidly,  sublimely,  that  right  and  justice  and  freedom  shall 
have  their  witnesses  on  the  earth. 

So  Socrates  drank  the  deadly  hemlock,  as  one  who  pours  a 
libation  to  life,  and  none  died  but  the  men  who  gave  the  teacher 
the  poison.  So  Jesus  Christ  died  on  the  tree  of  death,  and  now 
to  look  at  the  cross,  which  he  made  a  throne  of  life,  is  to  live 
forever.  So  died  Nathan  Hale,  on  a  common  gibbet,  by  the 
330 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

strangling  shame  of  the  hangman's  noose,  and  schoolboys  today 
kiss  his  name  on  the  page  of  their  history,  and  repeat,  as  a 
living  watchword  of  patriotism  his  dying  words.  So  died  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  and  the  simple  grandeur  of  his  life  blossomed  in 
his  death,  and  its  fruitage  comes  to  its  harvest  all  the  days  of 
all  the  years.  So  died  these  men  whose  memory  we  come 
today  to  honor. 

The  Times  newspaper,  at  its  own  cost,  gently  and  with  all 
appreciation,  refusing  the  desire  of  hundreds  to  unite  in  the 
erection  of  this  testimonial,  places  this  memorial,  and  dedicates 
it  to  the  memory  of  the  heroic  men,  soldiers  in  the  ranks  of 
industry,  who  gave  their  lives  as  witnesses  to  the  righteousness 
of  industrial  freedom,  and  who  now  sleep  beneath  the  shadow 
of  this  shaft.  But  it  consecrates  it  to  the  living  cause  for 
which  they  died. 

This  monument  is  erected  here,  not  that  these  martyrs 
may  not  be  forgotten.  Love  will  remember  them,  and  teach 
their  names  and  their  heroism  to  their  children's  children, 
writing  the  epitaphs  of  the  beloved  dead  upon  the  fleshly 
tablets  of  the  heart,  more  lasting  than  inscriptions  graven  in 
granite  and  bronze.  But  it  is  here  placed,  "lest  we  forget"! 
For  it  is  a  teacher  who  will  not  only  commemorate  the  heroism 
of  the  men  who  died,  but  will  inspire  anew  the  cause  which 
lives. 

Not  only  a  monument  to  the  dead,  but  a  lighthouse  for 
the  living.  In  the  stormy,  overclouded  days  and  the  dark 
and  starless  nights,  which  yet  may  come  in  the  life  of  the 
nation,  it  will  shine  through  the  tempest  as  shines  a  star.  It 
will  gleam  across  the  tossing  waves,  a  light  that  at  once  warns 
of  danger  and  guides  to  safety.  So  long  as  it  stands,  into  the 
storm  and  stresses  of  our  warring  days,  into  our  hearts  growing 
callous  and  selfish  and  forgetful,  it  will  call  with  the  thrill  of 
the  dead  years  come  to  life — 

"Remember.," 

"Remember,"  the  dead  will  call  from  their  graves.  "Re 
member,  not  us,  but  the  cause  for  which  we  gave  the  measure 
less  price  of  our  lives.  Not  us,  but  the  hideous  thing  which 
slew  us  as  we  toiled.  Remember  the  foul  spirit  of  hate  and 
destruction  that  in  one  swift  hour  of  desolation  offered  upon 
the  bloody  altar  of  anarchy  a  score  of  innocent  lives,  a  great 

331 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

household  of  industry,  enterprise,  intelligence,  and  much  more 
than  all  this." 

For  one  cannot  trace  the  way  of  the  waves  of  this  awful 
tragedy,  as  they  recoil  in  a  hundred  directions  from  the  smoking 
ruins  in  which  the  blood  of  the  slain  men  strove  to  quench  the 
lurid  flames  set  on  by  murder.  The  score  of  human  lives  can 
be  counted  and  listed  in  the  report  of  the  massacre.  But  the 
homes  palled  in  mourning,  the  wives  robed  in  the  dark  habili 
ments  of  widowhood,  the  laughing  little  children  turned  into 
weeping  orphans,  love  shrouding  its  sobbing  figure  in  sackcloth, 
the  loneliness  bringing  heartache  into  the  true  camaraderie 
and  loyal  yoke-fellowships  of  labor — who  shall  measure  this 
in  the  statistics  of  cruelty  and  crime? 

The  spirit  of  brutality  that  is  not  content  to  rejoice  in  the 
sorrow  that  is  all  too  common  to  humanity,  but  must  take  the 
joy  and  laughter  and  love  that  make  life's  burdens  light  and 
its  sorrows  sweet,  and  transform  the  laughter  into  tears,  the 
joy  into  bitterness  of  sorrow,  the  love  into  agony  of  woe,  that 
makes  motherhood  childless  and  childhood  fatherless — what 
punishment  can  be  too  great  for  such  a  spirit  of  hate  and  malice? 
Oh,  Thou  Righteous  Judge  of  all  the  earth — deal  Thou 
between  the  mourner  and  the  murderer — deal  righteously. 
Oh,  Eternal  Judge,  between  the  bereaved  and  the  destroyer — 
between  the  dead  and  those  whose  hands  are  crimson  with  his 
blood!  "Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  Earth  do  right?" 

A  noble  deed  transfigures  the  commonplace  into  the  sub 
lime.  Not  so  many  men  were  slain  at  Thermopylae  as  at  Water 
loo,  but  the  glory  of  that  narrow  pass  is  told  in  the  inscription 
above  the  little  heap  of  immortal  dust.  "  Go,  traveler,  tell  at 
Sparta  that  we  died  here  in  obedience  to  her  sacred  laws!" 

The  holiness  of  the  law  has  outlived  the  kingdom  of  Sparta 
and  the  republic  of  Greece.  A  score  of  mission  buildings  in 
the  west  are  statelier  and  nobler  in  architecture  than  one  on 
the  plaza  at  San  Antonio,  but  the  message  to  the  world — "  Ther 
mopylae  had  her  messenger  of  defeat.  The  Alamo  had  none", 
has  immortalized  it.  "  Hot  Springs  "  is  commonplace.  "  Ther 
mopylae"  has  its  place  in  deathless  song.  "The  cotton  wood" 
is  common  and  cheap  as  it  sounds.  "The  Alamo"  inspires 
the  patriot  and  the  poet.  In  all  the  annals  of  printerdom — in 
all  the  stories  of  newspaperdom,  there  is  no  page  of  history  of 
332 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

the  types  that  thrills  in  all  the  deep  emotions  of  the  tragic 
drama  like  this  midnight  scene  in  the  Times  Building,  when 
these  men,  printers  and  linotype  men  and  editors  and  press 
men,  went  down  to  death  and  ascended  to  immortality.  Heroes 
of  free  journalism.  Martyrs  in  the  great  cause  of  industrial 
freedom. 

Beneath  this  shaft  of  granite  and  bronze  quietly  rests  their 
hallowed  dust.  Under  the  shadow  of  pine  and  palm,  emblems 
of  strength  and  victory,  while  dreams  of  peace  come  to  illumine 
the  caressing  darkness.  How  like  an  afternoon  of  June  the 
November  sunlight  covers  them,  tenderly  as  a  mother  draws 
her  veil  over  the  face  of  the  little  one  she  has  lulled  to  sleep 
with  the  sweetest  music  in  the  world.  For  them,  resting  in 
the  dear,  cool  arms  of  our  mother  earth,  no  fearsome  dreams, 
no  waking  unto  weary  days,  no  troublous  things  shall  ever  come. 

For  "all  their  storms  are  quiet  as  the  sun;  and  all  their 
restless  seas  are  still  and  perfumed  as  the  blossoming  shore". 
Lay  thy  sweet  darkness  tenderly  upon  their  faces,  oh,  gentle 
Earth,  even  as  lovingly  as  thou  didst  upon  thy  breast  the  thorn- 
crowned  head  of  the  Martyr  King,  tortured  to  his  death.  Upon 
their  breasts  we  lay  the  pilgrim  staff  we  break  above  them  at 
their  journey's  end.  Roses  for  perfume,  lilies  for  peace,  laurel 
for  their  glory  we  twine  above  their  brows.  Against  the  stately 
pile  that  keeps  their  names  we  rest  the  inverted  torch  that 
means  for  them  not  the  quenching  of  the  flame  of  life,  but  the 
dawning  of  the  star  of  immortality. 

Above  your  dust,  oh,  sacred  dead,  we  consecrate  this 
monument.  We  dedicate  it  to  the  cause  for  which  you  died. 
To  free  labor  for  free  men;  to  the  unfettered  hand;  to  the 
unshackled  mind;  to  the  free  soul. 

To  the  loving  memory  of  the  old  and  the  glorious  hope  of 
the  new  day,  when  all  men  shall  know  each  other  even  as  God 
knows  men;  when  the  brotherhood  of  man  shall  be  a  fact  world 
wide,  even  as  it  is  a  truth  of  God;  when  all  the  mistakes  of  all 
of  us;  when  all  the  cruel  misunderstandings  that  have  separated 
and  embittered  our  lives;  when  all  the  bitter  wrongs  we  have 
inflicted,  and  all  the  cruel  wrongs  we  have  suffered,  shall  be 
corrected  by  infinite  wisdom  and  eternal  righteousness;  and 
all  the  evil  and  sorrow  of  our  lives  shall  be  fainter  than  the 
memory  of  the  vanished  cloud  of  a  summer  long  gone  by. 

333 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

So  moving  were  these  two  addresses,  a  challenge 
was  based  on  the  hearing  or  reading  of  them  when  the 
jury  was  being  impanelled  for  the  murder  trial  which 
followed.  A  demand  was  made  of  the  Judge  that  Dr. 
Burdette  be  cited  to  explain  his  speech  on  the  occasion 
of  the  dedication  of  the  monument.  The  Court  was 
too  wise  to  give  Dr.  Burdette  another  opportunity. 

But  the  opportunity  came  when  there  was  a  service 
held  in  memory  at  the  Hollywood  Cemetery.  Time 
may  have  somewhat  softened  his  pronouncement,  but 
his  memory  had  not  forgotten  when  he  spoke: 

I  once  stood  on  the  historic  plain  where  the  mountains 
look  on  Marathon,  and  Marathon  looks  on  the  sea.  Almost 
unconsciously  I  uncovered  my  head  before  the  great  mound, 
the  Soros,  where  sleep  the  heroic  Greeks  who  on  an  August  day 
2500  years  ago  fell  as  they  repelled  the  outnumbering  hordes 
that  swarmed  against  their  little  band  like  locusts  of  the 
wilderness. 

Two  American  boys  at  my  side  bared  their  heads.  And 
their  American  mother  bent  to  kiss  the  fragrant  asphodel — 
the  meadow  flower  trodden  in  days  of  myth  and  fable  by  the 
feet  of  heroes,  and  swept  by  the  trailing  garments  of  goddess 
and  nymph.  We  reverenced  the  memory  of  the  men  who 
died  there.  The  heroic  Greeks,  their  allies  and  their  bondmen, 
in  defense  of  their  homes  and  western  civilization.  Twenty- 
five  centuries — and  men  remember  with  reverence  their  heroism 
and  sacrifice  and  their  victory.  Loving  and  loyal  hands 
builded  above  them  this  mound  of  earth,  baptized  in  their 
blood. 

On  the  summit  of  a  hill  shaped  by  the  hands  of  the  Creator, 
the  mecca  year  by  year  of  thousands  of  Americans  who  make 
reverent  pilgrimage  thither,  a  graceful  shaft  of  granite  com 
memorates  the  heroism  and  sacrifice  of  another  little  band  of 
heroes  standing  to  the  death  between  their  homes  and  oppres 
sion;  faithful  unto  death  in  their  devotion  to  human  freedom — 
national  liberty.  Bunker  Hill  is  hallowed  by  devotion  and 
sacrifice. 

334 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

Heroes  of  the  bow  and  spear  were  these  Greeks  of  the  olden 
days.  Men  of  the  rifle  and  bayonet  were  the  heroes  of  Bunker 
Hill.  They  met  death,  running  at  the  head  of  the  charging 
columns  with  shouts  of  defiance,  and  smote  him  in  the  face  as 
they  fell. 

Here,  in  our  own  day,  sleep  heroes  as  illustrious.  Cham 
pions  of  industrial  freedom,  slain  by  the  red  hands  of  anarchy, 
smiting  under  cover  of  the  darkness. 

"Keep  thee  from  me,"  cried  the  knight  in  the  days  of 
chivalry,  giving  his  foeman  ample  time  to  prepare  for  onset. 
The  voice  of  the  bugle,  singing  its  challenge  high  and  clear, 
carries  to  the  enemy  the  advance  of  the  soldier.  A  challenging 
shot,  fired  wide,  was  the  old-time  shout  of  the  sailor,  bidding 
the  enemy  clear  his  decks  for  action.  At  Marathon,  at  Water 
loo,  at  Bunker  Hill,  heroes  were  slain  by  heroes. 

But  these  heroic  souls  who  sleep  here  were  murdered  as 
they  toiled  at  peaceful,  honorable  labor  for  their  daily  bread. 
Three  archvillainies  there  were  that  conspired  against  them. 
Cowardice  drew  the  veil  of  darkness  hiding  the  movements  of 
the  creatures  lifting  red  hands  against  the  lives  of  the  uncon 
scious  victims.  Murder  planned  the  hellish  machine  which 
could  most  effectually  destroy  property  and  life  together. 
Treacherous  anarchy,  hating  all  law  and  order,  applied  the 
detonating  match  that  wrought  midnight  confusion  and  sudden 
death. 

Then  under  false  names,  that  were  lies,  under  many  dis 
guises,  skulking  and  hiding,  in  fear  and  hate,  the  conspirators 
fled  and  for  a  time  escaped. 

These  things  are  simple,  plain  statements  of  fact.  These 
things  are  true.  They  are  not  spoken  in  bitterness.  If  I  had 
a  tongue  of  lightning,  a  voice  of  thunder,  and  my  words  were 
leaping  flame,  I  could  never  tell  what  happened  on  that  awful 
October  midnight  in  the  Times  building  when  these  men  were 
murdered.  I  am  prejudging  the  case  of  no  man.  But  some 
body  wrought  this  deed  of  anarchy;  somebody  slew  these 
innocent  men. 

May  God  speedily  clear  from  all  stain  of  suspicion  the 
names  of  all  innocent  men.  And  may  he  as  surely  bring  to 
the  bar  of  judgment  the  guilty  ones.  Can  any  true  man  refuse 
to  say  "Amen"  to  this? 

335 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Beside  these  martyred  dead  we  have  no  thought  for  ven 
geance.  Should  we  strive  to  utter  such  a  word  the  sleeping 
martyred  ones  would  waken  to  its  harshness  in  this  holy  place, 
and  whisper  to  us,  "Vengeance  is  mine,  saith  the  Lord."  Our 
lips  are  sealed.  But  today,  as  thousands  of  years  ago,  the 
voice  of  a  murdered  brother  rises  to  God  from  the  sodden 
ground.  "Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right?" 

As  we  wait  here,  the  quiet  dead  teach  us  peace  and  tender 
forgiveness.  The  martyrs  have  forgiven  their  murderers. 
But  have  their  murderers  forgiven  them?  If  so,  they  will 
show  their  forgiveness  to  the  living. 

God's  angels  of  grace  keep  watch  over  this  sacred  ground, 
God's  love  keeps  it  from  profanation  by  unclean  hands.  Here, 
at  this  holy  trysting  place,  its  grasses  watered  by  tears  of  all 
who  love  honor,  may  the  Four  Daughters  of  God,  Mercy  and 
Truth,  Peace  and  Righteousness,  meet  to  greet  and  kiss  each 
other  about  this  sepulcher  of  the  martyrs,  this  beautiful,  pitiful 
mingling  place  of  broken  hearts.  Their  common  grief  makes 
them  one  in  their  unceasing  sorrow.  For  the  kiss  that  rests 
tenderly  upon  one  perfumed  blossom  above  the  commingled 
ashes  here,  touches  every  sleeping  heart  beneath,  as  the  lips 
of  God  touch  the  souls  of  all  his  race  of  men.  Here  comes  the 
earliest  sunrise  with  its  glory  of  hope.  Here  the  meadow  lark 
sings  his  matin  to  the  morn.  Here  the  evening  shadows  linger 
long  and  tenderly  at  the  time  of  the  evensong  and  twilight. 
And  here,  when  the  stars  look  tenderly  down  upon  the  shrine 
of  human  sacrifice,  the  mocking  bird  enchants  the  night  with 
the  sweetness  of  melody. 

Death  made  his  darkness  noble  when  he  drew  into  the 
shadows  the  men  who  sleep  here.  This  is  a  temple  of  nobility, 
star  lighted  forever.  Fold  them  tenderly  on  thy  soothing 
breast,  0  mother  earth,  rest  their  tired  eyes  in  thy  comforting 
darkness.  Hush  all  their  fears  and  pains  in  the  softness  of  thy 
cool,  enfolding  arms.  Let  them  hear  only  the  whispering  of 
the  grasses  growing  so  lightly  above  them;  the  bird  song  at 
morn  and  even  and  at  midnight;  the  sweetest  of  all  the  tender 
echoes  of  the  voices  they  loved  the  best  on  earth.  The  laughter 
of  little  children.  The  lips  that  speak,  spoke  their  names  on 
earth  with  tender  intonations  of  love.  The  strong  voices  of 
the  friendship  of  loyal  comrades— faithful  unto  death.  God 
336 


VERSATILITY  OF  TALENTS 

who  hath  measured  unto  them  the  anguish  of  the  cross,  reward 
unto  them  the  joy  and  glory  of  the  crown.  He  who  hath 
accounted  them  worthy  of  martyrdom,  grant  unto  them  the 
exaltation  of  the  saint. 

And  teach  us  with  the  eloquent  silent  lips  of  these  sleeping 
teachers — teach  us,  standing  beside  you,  to  pray  for  your  sake 
the  prayer  of  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth,  dying  in  agony  upon 
the  cross,  praying  for  those  who  compassed  his  death: 

"Father,  forgive  them;  they  knew  not  what  they  did." 


22  337 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  CLOSING  YEARS 

THE  the  latter  years  of  his  life  were  devoted 
to  his  writing  for  the  press,  occasionally  lec 
turing,  numerous  addresses  on  occasions  of 
public  interest  and  importance,  to  a  serene 
and  kindly  contemplation  of  life  in  all  its  phases,  and 
correspondence  with  his  old  friends,  which  he  main 
tained  faithfully  up  to  the  time  when  the  pen,  as  he 
said,  became  "so  grievous  a  burden". 

A  picture  of  his  life  in  the  last  years  is  given  by  a 
newspaper  contributor  who  visited  him  for  the  pur 
poses  of  a  sketch  and  interview. 

Every  inch  of  space  in  his  study  or  "den"  seems  permeated 
with  his  radiant  personality.  Two  sides  of  the  room  are  almost 
entirely  of  glass,  through  which  delegates  from  the  sun's  rays 
come  in  to  play  pranks  with  the  gleams  of  wit  that  emanate 
from  the  heart  of  the  man.  The  walls  are  covered  with  photo 
graphs  of  famous  people,  principally  old  newspaper  friends  of 
Mr.  Burdette,  while  bookcases  are  filled  with  the  works  he 
loves.  He  says  his  favorite  authors  are  determined  by  his 
moods  and  by  circumstances.  Sometimes  he  is  a  devoted 
reader  of  Charles  Lamb,  while  again  Shakespeare,  Scott,  Thack 
eray  and  Dickens  hold  prominent  places  in  his  leisure  hours. 
When  asked  what  humorous  works  he  liked  best,  the  merry, 
characteristic  twinkle  invaded  his  eye  as  he  said,  "  My  favorite 
works  of  humor?  Why,  they  are  the  modern  historical  novels, 
and  the  more  seriously  they  take  themselves,  the  funnier 
they  are." 

Hanging  on  one  of  the  study  doors  is  a  long,  narrow  parch 
ment  containing  a  curious  Arabian  inscription,  gotten  up  for 
the  purpose  of  warning  the  devil  to  keep  off  the  premises. 
Mr.  Burdette  secured  it  when  abroad,  from  an  Arab,  who  assured 
338 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

him  that  any  man  who  had  such  an  inscription  hung  on  the 
walls  of  his  home  was  immune  from  any  interference  of  the  sub 
terranean  monarch.  The  student's  desk  was  littered  with 
manuscripts  and  correspondence,  and  in  the  midst  of  this 
literary  confusion  lay  the  well-worn  Bible,  the  book  that  nestles 
closest  in  the  heart  of  this  man's  daily  life. 

Mr.  Burdette  always  makes  his  own  calendars,  and  these 
recording  tablets  on  which  the  humorist  splashes  the  overflow 
of  effervescent  wit  would  make  a  unique  collection  if  bound. 
Three  months  are  usually  placed  on  one  card  three  feet  long 
and  one  foot  wide.  Each  day  is  given  about  a  square  inch  of 
space,  and  in  these  spaces  Mr.  Burdette  keeps  a  tab  on  his 
engagements,  usually  making  some  grotesque  picture  to  repre 
sent  that  which  is  to  take  place.  The  day  set  aside  for  visiting 
his  tailor  was  designated  by  a  humorous  drawing  of  a  suit  of 
clothes  with  a  hat  on  a  pole.  The  day  for  the  dentist  contained 
a  huge  molar.  The  day  Mrs.  Burdette  was  elected  vice-presi 
dent  of  the  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs  inspired  a  remarkable 
work  of  art,  as  did  the  day  his  son  Robert  achieved  honors  at 
college. 

Four  hours  and  a  half  of  each  morning  are  spent  by  Mr. 
Burdette  in  this  den,  wrestling  over  sermons,  arranging  lectures 
or  attending  to  correspondence,  and  if  the  worker  becomes 
weary,  one  glance  from  his  windows  at  the  encompassing  waves 
of  verdure,  and  the  rugged,  deep-cafioned  mountains  that 
grandly  loom  in  the  distance,  gives  the  needed  inspiration, 
and  when  the  head  is  again  bent  over  the  work,  the  pen  must 
rush  to  keep  pace  with  the  word  music  that  springs  from  the 
heart.  Afternoons  are  set  aside  for  reading,  visiting,  receiving 
friends  or  for  working  in  the  garden. 

The  beautiful  home  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Burdette  is  an  example 
of  domestic  possibilities.  There  is  perfect  congeniality  of 
temperament,  and  the  strongest  sense  of  comradeship  between 
the  two.  Mr.  Burdette's  den  is  at  one  end  of  the  hall,  his  wife's 
at  the  other,  and  during  working  hours  they  are  incessantly 
industrious,  afterwards  criticising  each  other's  work,  amending, 
correcting  and  suggesting.  So  readily  mutual  are  they  in  their 
work,  that  on  two  occasions — at  Louisville,  Ky.,  and  Grand 
Rapids,  Mich. — when  Mr.  Burdette  was  detained  by  impossible 
railway  connections,  his  wife,  who  had  gone  on  ahead  to  be 

339 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

ready  for  such  emergencies,  took  his  place  on  the  lecture  plat 
form,  and  filled  his  engagements  to  the  satisfaction  of  his 
audiences. 

Mrs.  Burdette  always  accompanies  her  husband  on  his 
lecture  tours,  believing  that  wherever  he  is  there  is  her  home. 
She  is  very  practical,  and  has  the  reputation  among  business 
men  of  being  one  of  the  best  business  women  in  California, 
while  on  the  other  hand,  her  husband  is  decidedly  a  dreamer, 
a  veritable  "Rainbow  Chaser",  and  his  absent-mindedness 
gives  his  alert  and  vigilant  little  wife  hourly  employment.  At 
the  same  time,  however,  his  philosophical  tranquility  is  a 
cordial  for  his  wife's  intensity. 

Mr.  Burdette  takes  unbounded  pride  in  his  charming  help 
mate,  and  when  showing  guests  her  immaculate  and  orderly 
study,  with  the  well-groomed  desk,  the  chest  of  drawers  for 
filing  away  papers,  and  many  other  exquisite  furnishings  typical 
of  femininity,  he  said,  with  something  suspiciously  like  a  sigh, 
"She  is  so  systematic.  Now  she  could  get  up  in  blackest  night 
and  lay  her  hands  on  anything,  but  I  always  keep  my  duds  in  a 
bag,  and  it  takes  me  half  a  day  to  find  what  I'm  after!" 

Mr.  Burdette  loves  being  out  of  doors,  and  he  is  never  so 
happy  as  when,  garbed  in  overalls,  wide  hat  and  stout  boots, 
he  works  among  his  flowers.  He  declares  that  "houses  are 
only  fit  to  eat  and  sleep  in  anyway".  Just  for  recreation  this 
summer,  he  and  his  son  Roy  built  a  stone  wall  300  feet  in  length 
around  one  of  the  rose  gardens,  mixing  the  mortar,  lugging  the 
stones  and  carrying  the  hod  all  by  themselves,  and  when  the 
work  was  finished,  a  stone  tablet  bearing  the  inscription  "  Pater 
Filiusque  Soli  Fecerunt"  (father  and  son  alone  made  it),  was 
set  in  the  wall.  Speaking  of  his  preparations  for  this  outdoor 
gymnasium,  as  Mr.  Burdette  called  this  masonry  work,  he 
said  laughingly,  "  Why,  we  didn't  know  the  meaning  of  mortar 
and  cement,  let  alone  mixing  the  stuff,  and  we  had  to  go  to  the 
dictionary  to  find  out." 

The  first  little  home  in  Peoria  had  been  one  of 
struggle  and  suffering.  The  home  in  Burlington 
had  sheltered  continued  suffering,  accompanied  with 
something  of  success,and  was  well  named/'  Heartsease''. 
340 


MR.   BURDETTE   IN~HIS"GARDEN  AT   "SUNNYCREST1 


THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

"Doubting  Castle"  at  Ardmore  had  been  a  tent  in  the 
wilderness,  as  it  were,  and  " Robin's  Nest"  at  Bryn 
Mawr  had  been  a  refuge  from  the  weariness  and  vicis 
situdes  of  lecture  travel  up  and  down  the  land.  "Sun- 
nycrest, "  his  California  home,  was  established  when  he 
came  to  live  among  its  roses,  its  birds  and  its  sunsets,  all 
of  which  appealed  to  his  poetical  temperament,  com 
forted  and  made  joyous  his  latter  years. 

"  Shadow  of  mountain  and  smile  of  the  sea, 

Orange  grove  vistas  that  dimple  between; 
Ripple  of  mocking-bird  minstrelsy, 

Glint  of  the  starlight's  silvery  sheen; 
Beauty  and  perfume  of  lily  and  rose, 

Grace  of  the  springtime  the  glad  year  through; 
Eastward  the  sunset  its  glory  throws — 

"Sunny crest"  kisses  a  greeting  to  you!" 

The  morning  of  the  25th  of  March,  1909,  while 
preparations  were  being  made  for  a  large  reception, 
afternoon  and  evening,  on  the  tenth  wedding  anniver 
sary,  Mr.  Burdette  slipped  on  the  damp  porch,  receiving 
an  injury  which  at  the  time  seemed  slight,  but  which 
soon  developed  into  a  serious  condition.  Courageous 
and  uncomplaining,  he  passed  through  the  day  with 
what  we  afterward  realized  must  have  been  great 
suffering,  and  except  that  he  was  unable  to  get  up  and 
down  when  the  night  came,  he  had  made  no  demonstra 
tion  of  how  seriously  his  back  was  hurt.  Medical  aid 
was  summoned  during  the  following  days,  and  relief  to 
some  extent  was  offered.  Having  a  long  standing 
engagement  to  speak  at  New  York  at  the  Associated 
Press  Banquet,  we  started  for  the  East  in  April. 
Before  twenty-four  hours  on  the  train  it  was  evident 
that  the  wisdom  of  the  trip  ought  to  have  been  ques 
tioned.  The  stay  in  New  York  was  a  brief  one,  and  the 

341 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

fulfilment  of  the  engagement  was  not  entirely  satis 
factory,  due  to  his  physical  condition.  However,  this 
was  said  of  it: 

The  banquet,  which  was  held  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  with 
700  members  present,  was  addressed  by  Hon.  Rufus  Choate, 
Ambassador  from  England,  the  German  Ambassador,  Senator 
Patterson  of  Colorado  and  Robert  J.  Burdette. 

Mr.  Burdette's  speech  was  the  personification  of  wit  and 
humor  from  beginning  to  end  and  was  made  emphatic  and 
unique  by  Burdette's  peculiar  voice  and  accent — all  of  which 
combined  to  convulse  the  audience  at  the  end  of  every  sentence. 

In  the  course  of  his  address  Mr.  Burdette  said: 

If  a  man  would  publish  a  newspaper  called  "  Blue  Pencil- 
lings",  made  up  exclusively  of  the  things  all  the  other  papers 
in  the  town  shut  out,  he  would  have  a  circulation  equal  to  the 
United  States  Navy  which  has  been  around  the  world  and  is 
starting  back  again.  But  it  would  only  last  a  day.  The 
editor  wouldn't  last  quite  so  long.  The  publisher  would  last — 
oh,  maybe  ten  or  fifteen  years — with  a  reduction  of  time  for 
good  behaviour  and  a  chance  for  a  pardon — or  maybe  a  mis 
trial.  But  it  would  be  worth  getting  shot  for,  if  a  man  doesn't 
mind  being  shot. 

The  publishers  have  given  us  better  newspapers  in  this 
twentieth  century  than  the  world  ever  knew  before  our  day. 
If  it  were  possible  to  attain  to  any  sort  of  perfection  in  any 
business,  it  would  seem  that  we  must  have  reached  perfection 
in  the  art  of  news-gathering.  But  somewhat  we  have  sacrificed, 
as  we  have  in  all  lines  of  business. 

We  are  more  capable,  more  daring,  more  progressive,  more 
successful,  more  purposeful — I  wonder  if  men  are  quite  so 
lovable — if  our  friendships,  in  this  life  of  stress,  are  quite  so 
manly  and  tender  and  loyal?  You  see,  between  man  and  man, 
or  man  and  woman,  it  isn't  an  easy  thing  to  make  love  in  a  six 
cylinder  automobile  hitting  the  high  places  at  sixty  miles  per. 
That's  a  ride  for  the  nerves.  The  heart  prefers  a  one-horse 
buggy,  with  winding  road  that  leads  nowhere,  a  horse  that  is 
given  to  meditation  and  a  jog-trot;  the  whip  in  the  socket, 
342 


THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

and  the  lines  wrapped  around  your  leg,  and  your  arms  wrapped 
— oh,  pshaw,  what's  the  use? 

Times  have  changed  and  we  must  play  the  game  under  the 
new  rules.  Go  ahead  and  "get  out  the  paper".  I  believe  in 
today.  I  am  an  optimist  of  the  class  represented  by  the  man 
who  fell  out  of  the  dormer  window  of  a  twenty-five-story  sky 
scraper.  He  counted  the  windows  as  he  shot  downward,  until 
he  passed  the  third  floor.  Then  he  chortled  joyously,  "Well, 
I  am  all  right  thus  far". 

With  some  difficulty,  and  a  rest  in  Chicago,  we 
returned  to  the  Coast,  where,  in  a  few  days,  an  unfor 
tunate,  serious,  brief  attack  of  illness  on  my  part  seemed 
to  force  him  to  forget  his  own  physical  condition  so  that 
he  continued  with  his  work.  In  June  we  determined  to 
go  to  our  summer  cottage  at  Clifton-by-the-Sea,  and 
while  a  trained  nurse  was  sent  with  me,  the  next  morn 
ing  after  arriving  Mr.  Burdette  found  it  impossible  to 
stand,  and  that  nurse  became  his  constant  attendant 
for  the  next  four  months.  So  serious  was  his  condition 
that  the  Associated  Press  gave  out  bulletins  of  his 
condition,  and  that  brought  in  return  as  an  expression 
of  his  friends  from  all  over  the  United  States,  hundreds 
of  letters  which  gave  definite  evidence  of  the  hold  he 
had  upon  the  public  heart. 

And  this  from  one  of  the  rank  and  file: 

As  one  of  Pasadena's  ordinary  men  in  the  humbler  walks 
of  life,  I  would  very  much  wish  to  mingle  my  words  of  heartfelt 
sympathy  with  them  for  you  just  at  this  time;  though  one  feels 
entirely  helpless  and  the  only  thing  that  can  be  done  is  with 
word  or  pen.  I  have  never  looked  upon  Niagara  Falls  or  seen 
the  big  trees  of  California;  but;  I  have  heard  your  voice  in 
sermon  and  in  prayer  and  anecdote  revealing  those  great  personal 
powers  and  charms  that  you  so  eminently  possess,  and  I  have 
seen  that  intensely  pleasant  smile,  lighting  up  men's  hearts 
and  furnishing  them  with  a  God  speed  to  better  things.  May 
the  best  the  Lord  can  give  be  yours. 

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ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

As  it  became  evident  that  he  would  probably  never 
be  able  to  assume  his  duties  as  Pastor  again,  the  Temple 
Baptist  Church  was  asked  to  seek  some  one  to  fill  the 
place  which  he  must  vacate.  Grief  at  the  thought  of 
this  was  most  sincere,  and  almost  unreconcilable  in 
many  cases,  but  we  counselled  them  that  possibly  he 
had  done  his  work  and  that  the  time  had  come  when 
Temple  Church  needed  directions  along  different  lines. 
But  the  out-pouring  of  their  love  to  him  at  that  time 
was  such  as  rarely  comes  to  men  before  they  have  passed 
beyond  the  consciousness  of  such  expressions. 

The  resolutions  passed  by  Temple  Church  most 
earnestly  expressed  the  attitude  of  his  "flock",  espe 
cially  the  section  which  reads: 

Resolved,  That  Temple  Church  can  best  honor  God  and 
cherish  the  memory  of  Dr.  Burdette  as  pastor  and  leader  by 
making  our  position  in  Christian  service,  attained  under  his 
loving  leadership,  a  stepping  stone  to  a  loftier  and  broader 
plane  of  Christian  usefulness. 

He  accepted  the  illness  which  followed  his  injury 
in  1909  with  resignation,  patience,  and  an  unfailing 
belief  in  the  value  of  the  chastened  spirit.  Indeed,  in 
the  following  year  one  of  his  most  effective  letters  to  the 
Sunday  School  Times  dealt  with  his  view  of  the  value 
of  sickness  and  trouble.  It  was  entitled,  "Why  I 
Believe  in  Sickness  and  Trouble/'  and  in  that  he  set 
forth  his  belief  in  this  wise: 

Not  because  I  want  to,  but  because  I  have  to.  Because 
I  believe  in  quinine,  which  isn't  half  so  sweet  as  sugar,  but  is  a 
much  better  febrifuge.  Because  I  don't  believe  that  an  athlete 
can  train  for  a  Marathon  race  on  ice  cream  soda  and  fudge. 
Because  I  don't  believe  that  pickle  and  cake  are  good  muscle- 
builders  for  the  tennis  and  basket  ball  girl.  Because  I  believe 
that  the  greatest  victory  of  the  Revolutionary  War  was  Valley 
Forge. 

344 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

I  believe  in  the  strengthening  discipline  of  sickness  and 
trouble  because  men  don't  go  into  a  rose  garden  to  look  for 
ship  timber.  I  believe  that  Napoleon  was  defeated  by  his 
succession  of  victories,  while  Washington  was  victorious  through 
his  many  defeats.  Because  I  believe  that  America  was  dis 
covered  while  a  starving  navigator  was  being  turned  away 
from  palace  doors  under  the  smarting  scourge  of  scientific 
geographers.  Because  I  believe  a  man  who  never  had  an  ache 
never  had  a  pleasure. 

Because  a  horse  that  is  allowed  to  feed  himself  from  the 
bin  and  have  the  run  of  the  pasture  never  wins  the  race.  Be 
cause  I  believe  in  the  old  Arab  proverb,  "All  sunshine  makes 
the  desert".  Because  a  snow-fed  river  lasts  through  the  sum 
mer  drouth.  Because  Jacob  saw  a  vision  that  all  the  world 
still  looks  at  when  his  head  was  pillowed  on  a  stone  in  the 
desert.  Because  David  learned  to  govern  Israel  in  the  cave 
of  Adullam,  and  Joseph  learned  high  statecraft  in  an  Egyptian 
prison.  Because  people  who  get  everything  they  want  and  get 
it  easy,  die  crying  for  the  moon. 

Because  I  believe  in  this  world.  I  also  believe  in  the 
spiritual  world,  but  that  isn't  the  one  in  which  we  live.  And 
in  this  "world  ye  shall  have  tribulation". 

Life  at  the  street  level  and  life  in  the  altitudes  are  very 
different.  The  weather  man  gave  the  official  temperature  of 
yesterday  afternoon,  at  the  hour  I  was  carried  into  the  hospital, 
unconscious  from  heat-stroke,  as  only  eighty-nine  degrees. 
But  that  was  up  on  the  roof  of  a  twenty-story  building,  under 
the  shadow  of  a  protecting  canopy,  where  the  air  was  clean  and 
pure  and  sweet,  even  if  it  was  a  little  warm. 

Down  where  I  was  at  work,  laying  an  asphalt  pavement, 
the  hot  sun  flamed  down  on  the  back  of  my  head  till  my  brain 
seethed.  The  reflected  heat  glared  up  from  the  paving  stones 
into  my  face  till  my  eyes  went  blind.  I  breathed  the  hot, 
foul-smelling  dust  stirred  up  by  the  feet  of  a  thousand  horses 
and  the  poisonous  exhalations  from  an  opened  sewer.  That's 
how  hot  it  really  was.  A  hundred  and  three  in  the  shade  and 
no  shade.  I  tell  you,  Pilgrims,  we  don't  live  up  in  the  breezy 
observatory  of  the  weather  man.  We  work  down  in  the  street, 
and  we  live  in  a  tenement. 

I  do  not  believe  one  little  bit  in  the  fundamental  doctrine 
of  certain — or  rather,  very  uncertain— religious  societies  and 

345 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

schools  of  art,  that  "  Whatever  is,  isn't ",  and  conversely, 
"Whatever  isn't  is". 

I  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  world  into  which  I  was  born 
and  in  which  I  live,  as  firmly  as  I  know  I  was  born.  I  believe 
the  material  world  is  as  real  as  the  eternal  world — while  it 
lasts.  I  don't  believe  that  God  gave  me  eyes  just  to  play  a 
joke  on  a  poor  finite  creature,  taking  infinite  pleasure  in  watch 
ing  me  see  things  wrong  all  my  life. 

I  don't  believe  the  Creator,  who  can  make  things  right 
just  as  easily  as  he  can  make  them  wrong,  gave  me  sensations 
which  make  the  roaring  of  my  bones  fill  the  long  night  with 
aches  and  pains,  that  he  might  laugh  with  his  smiling  angels 
at  the  poor  fool  of  a  man  who  thought  he  was  sick  when  they 
all  knew  very  well  there  was  nothing  the  matter  with  him. 

I  don't  believe  he  painted  an  air-drawn  picture  of  a  world 
on  a  canvas  of  nothing,  that  he  might  amuse  himself  watching 
me  pant  up  the  non-existent  steeps  and  fall  into  the  uncreated 
depths,  crying  for  childish  fear  in  the  imaginary  darkness,  and 
laughing  with  equally  foolish  joy  at  the  unsubstantial  dream  of 
fabulous  sunlight. 

I  could  have  no  confidence  in  such  a  Providence.  How 
could  we  ask  him  for  bread,  when  there  would  be  the  haunting 
fear  that  he  might  give  us  a  stone,  just  because  our  senses  of 
sight  and  taste  which  he  had  given  us  were  so  misleading  that 
we  couldn't  tell  one  from  the  other  anyhow?  To  give  his 
children  deceiving  senses  would  be  the  brutality  of  a  heartless 
man  who  frightens  little  children  with  a  broom-and-sheet  ghost. 

That  we  do  have  some  imaginary  troubles  and  sicknesses, 
everybody  knows.  But  these  are  easily  cured  by  imaginary 
medicines  and  imaginary  treatment,  and  can  be  avoided  by 
imaginary  preventives. 

But  sorrow  in  the  soul  of  a  man  today  is  as  real  as  was 
the  agony  in  Gethsemane.  The  fire  of  human  anguish  is  now 
as  real  as  the  suffering  that  made  Job  curse  the  day  of  his  birth, 
and  smote  his  sympathizing  friends  dumb  with  heartache. 
"The  flesh  still  quivers  when  the  pincers  tear,  the  blood  will 
follow  where  the  knife  is  driven."  Pain  is  real  as  pleasure. 
Sorrow  is  absolute  as  joy.  If  we  would  see  the  crown,  we 
must  look  at  the  Cross  which  it  enwreathes  as  a  halo.  Anguish 
made  sweet  by  Love.  Pain  endured  and  conquered.  Suffering 
346 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

made  Holy.  Peace  acquired  through  affliction.  Human 
courage  crowned  by  Divine  compassion.  And  always,  the 
Human  as  real  as  the  Divine. 

There  is  no  virtue  in  mere  suffering.  There  is  no  goodness 
inherent  in  pain.  Had  there  been  nothing  on  the  Cross  but 
the  human  figure  of  the  Son  of  God,  writhing  in  mortal  agony, 
the  spectacle  had  been  repulsive.  The  submission  to  the 
reality  of  the  cross  was  its  glory.  The  endurance  of  actual 
bodily  pain,  positive  anguish  of  mind  and  soul — this  set  the 
brilliants,  out-shining  the  stars,  in  the  crown  of  victory. 

For  the  crown  is  for  a  victor.  And  a  victory  over  nothing 
is  crowned  with  the  shadow  of  a  shadow.  A  triumph  over 
imaginary  foes  wins  but  an  imaginary  crown. 

"Why  are  afflictions  sent  upon  the  people  of  God?"  That 
is  one  of  the  easy  questions.  I  don't  know.  And  yet  I  reckon 
I  know  as  much  about  it  as  anybody.  I  don't  know,  for  that 
matter,  why  afflictions  are  also  sent  upon  wicked  people.  I 
don't  know  why  innocent  children  suffer  for  the  sins  of  their 
parents.  But  they  do.  I  don't  know  why  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  assassinated  by  an  actor,  vanity-inflated  with  overwhelming 
sense  of  his  own  importance.  I  don't  know  why  Socrates  was 
poisoned  while  his  judges  remained  in  office. 

I  don't  know  why  Jesus  Christ  was  crucified  while  Pilate 
sat  on  the  judgment  seat  and  Herod  continued  to  pollute  a 
throne  with  iniquities.  I  don't  know  why,  for  three  hundred 
years,  God's  people,  sheep  of  his  hand  and  people  of  his  pasture, 
walked  on  burning  plowshares  under  skies  of  brass,  while 
storms  of  persecution  rained  upon  them  in  every  form  of 
horrible  torture  and  fearful  death. 

But  I  do  know  that  that  is  the  way  the  church  conquered 
the  world  for  Christ.  I  do  know  that  not  one  god  of  its  perse 
cutors  is  left  in  the  world  today,  save  as  a  broken  fragment  in 
a  temple  of  dust. 

What  do  I  know  about  pain,  and  sorrow,  and  trouble? 
I  know  only  what  everybody  knows — I  know  what  has  grown 
out  of  the  heart-soil  scarred  by  the  plow  and  torn  by  the  harrow. 
I  look  at  the  receding  storm  and  I  see  the  splendor  of  the  rain 
bow.  I  go  into  the  depths  of  a  murky  swamp,  and  say,  "A 
nest  of  pestilential  fevers".  Lo,  at  my  feet  the  delicate  beauty 
of  an  orchid.  I  catch  the  perfume  of  the  sandal- wood  on  the 

347 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

edge  of  the  axe.  I  hear  the  axes  ringing  in  the  forest  of  Lebanon, 
and  I  say,  "Death  and  destruction!"  Lo,  the  fragrance  of  the 
carven  beams  in  the  temple.  For  it  is  the  cedar  that  we  call 
dead — the  tree  felled  and  wrought  into  shapes  of  grace  and  use 
of  worship,  not  the  living  cedar  in  the  forest — that  gives  forth 
its  incense  of  praise. 

I  search  the  world  over,  all  its  continents,  islands  and  seas, 
for  the  sweetest,  tenderest,  holiest  spot  it  holds,  and  I  kneel 
beneath  the  gnarled  olives  of  dark  Gethsemane.  My  soul  is 
made  stronger,  my  thoughts  purer,  my  life  nobler,  by  its  agony 
of  renunciation.  I  look  upon  the  cross  of  shame — a  Roman 
instrument  of  torture  and  humiliation.  Lo,  it  shines  above 
every  crown  in  the  world,  it  glows  with  a  radiance  more  endur 
ing  than  the  sun  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  civiliza 
tion — an  emblem  of  authority,  by  which  princes  reign!  It 
gleams  in  the  splendor  of  heaven  above  the  dome  of  the  uni 
verse.  It  glorifies  everything  that  it  shines  upon. 

The  contemptuous  phrase  of  a  Roman  governor,  a  brutal 
sneer  at  the  prisoner  whom  he  feared,  and  a  taunt  to  exasperate 
the  Jews  whom  he  despised — "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  King" — 
endures  forever.  Angels  echo  it  in  anthems  of  exaltation,  and 
"the  great  multitude,  which  no  man  could  number",  and 
"every  created  thing  which  is  in  the  heaven,  and  on  the  earth, 
and  under  the  earth,  and  on  the  sea",  with  one  mighty  voice 
catch  up  the  scoff  of  Pilate,  and  with  it  ascribe  "the  blessing, 
and  the  honor,  and  the  glory,  and  the  dominion,  for  ever  and 
ever",  unto  the  Lamb  which  was  slain. 

Not  unto  him  who  put  the  cup  aside  at  Gethsemane.  Not 
unto  him  who  came  down  from  the  cross  and  saved  himself. 
But  unto  him  who  suffered ;  who  endured  the  cross — unto  him 
who  was  slain. 

Ah,  this  old  desire  to  make  things  easy,  to  smooth  away 
all  the  difficulties,  to  evade  all  the  burdens,  to  make  the  way 
to  heaven  down  hill  and  sunny  weather — it  is  a  sin  as  old  as  the 
race  of  man.  It  began  in  Eden  when  the  tempter  said,  "Pick 
out  the  easy  things  and  the  smooth  path.  Take  only  what 
looks  good  to  yourself;  reach  out  after  what  is  a  delight  to  the 
eyes  and  is  desirable  to  look  upon."  "Command  that  these 
stones  become  bread",  was  the  later  form  of  the  same 
temptation. 

348 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

And  once  again  it  presented  itself  in  the  hour  of  human 
suffering  and  weakness,  of  faintness  from  pain  and  hunger  and 
thirst — "  and  when  they  were  come  unto  a  place  called  Golgotha, 
they  gave  him  wine  to  drink  mingled  with  gall;  and  when  he 
had  tasted  it,  he  would  not  drink."  It  was  a  drug;  it  would 
stupefy  his  senses;  it  would  render  pain  an  illusion;  it  would 
make  the  sacrifice  easy.  And  when  he  knew  what  it  was,  "  He 
would  not  drink". 

There  are  teachers  today  who  say  to  us:  "Shut  your  eyes 
to  everything  harsh  and  disagreeable,  and  if  you  can't  see  it, 
it  isn't  there.  Try  our  great  Ostrich  Remedy  for  all  the  ills 
to  which  human  flesh  is  heir.  Stick  your  head  in  the  sand, 
and  you  can't  see  the  lion  coming." 

The  lion  is  there,  just  the  same,  and  if  you'll  stay  right 
where  you  are  and  keep  your  head  in  the  sand  a  little  longer, 
there  will  be  less  ostrich  and  more  lion  on  the  landscape. 

What  do  I  know  about  afflictions?  I  know  only  what 
everybody  else  knows — that  they  are  guide-posts  along  the 
way  of  the  Pilgrimage.  If  the  pathway  lies  through  struggle 
and  pains  and  fears,  patience  and  love,  and  foes  and  fightings, 
you're  pretty  sure  to  be  on  the  right  road.  What  is  this  mighty 
"sea  of  troubles"?  That's  the  Red  Sea.  Go  right  ahead  and 
see  the  glory  of  God.  This  is  death  in  the  desert?  Speak  to 
the  rock,  a-quiver  with  the  heat  glimmer,  and  see  the  fountains 
of  life  burst  forth.  That?  That's  a  king  wailing  the  sorrow 
of  a  broken  heart  in  the  chamber  over  the  gate.  You're  on  the 
right  way.  These?  A  long  line  of  prison  "finger-posts" — 
Peter  and  John  and  Paul  and  Silas — lots  of  prisons  on  the  right 
road.  This?  A  storm  on  Galilee.  Good  many  storms  on  the 
"Jesus  Way".  This  headless  body?  John  the  Baptist.  That  one? 
Paul.  This  shadowy  garden  where  the  starlight  gleams  softly 
on  the  crimson  dew  of  agony  falling  on  the  grass  blades?  Geth- 
semane.  You  have  to  pass  through  Gethsemane.  This  fearful 
hill?  Calvary.  This  burst  of  glory  and  splendor  of  life  and  joy? 

Oh,  Pilgrim,  this  is  Easter  morn!  You've  come  the  right 
way,  and  you're  Home,  Pilgrim,  you're  Home! 

Now,  suppose  you  had  avoided  all  this?  Turned  back  to 
Egypt?  Worshiped  Diana,  and  kept  out  of  prison?  Made  a 
little  money  by  the  sale  of  your  Christ,  like  Judas?  Gone 
around  Gethsemane?  Bowed  to  Pilate  and  avoided  the  Cross? 

349 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Later,  writing  to  his  sister,  in  October,  1909,  he 
said: 

This  is  October  14th.  Yesterday  we  went  to  Pasadena  to 
see  President  Taft  go  by.  I  saw  him.  I  don't  think  he  recog 
nized  me,  although  we  used  to  be  neighbors  of  the  Tafts  in 
Cincinnati.  But  I  have  grown  this  mustache  since  then  and 
that  has  changed  me  a  little.  And  beside,  I  don't  think  he  was 
born  when  we  lived  there.  That  might  affect  his  recollection 
of  me  somewhat.  I  saw  him  about  a  tenth  of  a  second,  while 
his  automobile  was  breaking  the  speed  limit  on  Orange  Grove 
Avenue.  Then  I  came  back  to  this  blessed  little  bungalow  by 
the  restful  sea.  The  Pacific  Ocean  never  hurries.  It  is  rest 
less,  but  it  takes  its  time.  The  surf  never  beats  in  rag-time. 

The  year  previous,  Mr.  Trumbull  of  the  Sunday 
School  Times  had  asked  Mr.  Burdette  for  a  series  of 
lesson  expositions  and  chapters  on  Civil  War  reminis 
cences,  and  his  letters  to  Mr.  Trumbull  show  his  later 
epistolary  vivacity  and  humor: 

MY  DEAR  BOY, 

Just  after  I  dropped  my  lesson  into  the  fire-box  came  your 
letter  asking  me  to  put  in  more  paragraphs.  I  will.  Next 
time.  As  Bill  Nye  says  about  the  ship  that  went  down  in 
October;  "We  did  not  hear  about  it  until  the  following  spring; 
and  then  it  was  too  late." 

What  a  son  of  your  father  you  are!  Your  birth-right  is  his 
great  big  Loving  Heart.  It  was  tender  as  a  woman's,  and  as 
strong  as  a  gladiator's.  I  think  the  reason  why  he  loved  help 
less  and  weak  people  so  much  was  just  because  he  could  help 
them.  You  have  his  way  of  saying  encouraging  things  in  just 
the  right  way,  at  just  the  right  time,  and  to  the  very  right  man. 
It  is  a  splendid  endowment,  to  have  the  right  kind  of  a  father 
isn't  it?  And  somehow,  you  know,  I  kindo,  sorto  give  the 
Boy  a  little  credit  for  some  of  it?  I  think  the  father  does,  too. 

The  Sunday  School  Times  also  published  his  volume 
of  verses,  "The  Silver  Trumpets ",  of  which  he  tells  in 
this  letter: 
350 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS 

PASADENA,  July  4th. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  TRUMBULL: 

Just  see  how  I  kept  the  "Fourth"  safe  and  sane!  Mrs. 
Burdette  and  I  sent  all  the  servants  away;  disconnected  the 
telephone,  muffled  the  door  bell,  lunched  on  bread  and  butter 
and  supped  on  bread  and  milk — and  lo,  a  whole,  long,  blessed 
day  without  an  interruption — a  day  of  work.  That  was  the 
kind  of  a  day  they  had  in  the  garden  of  Eden — a  day  of  work 
from  sunrise  to  sunset. 

The  first  "interruption"  caused  the  fall  of  man. 

From  that  day  to  this,  it  has  been  the  same  way.  Work 
is  a  joy;  a  blessing;  it  prolongs  life,  preserves  the  health,  keeps 
the  teeth  white,  and  inclines  the  hair  to  curl.  It's  the  "inter 
ruptions"  of  life  that  are  the  inventions  of  the  evil  one. 

Well;  I  send  you  the  results  of  a  quiet  day. 

You  must  know,  these  poems — I  have  to  call  them  some 
thing — were  written  as  a  Christmas  present  to  Mrs.  Burdette. 
"  What  shall  I  give  you  this  Christmas?  "  I  asked  her.  I  have 
to  ask  my  friends  what  they  want,  because  my  brain  is  very 
narrow  and  shallow.  For  many  years  I  have  bought  hat-pins 
for  women  and  base  balls  for  men — I  can  think  of  no  greater 
variety  of  Christmas  remembrances.  My  Lady  said  she  wanted 
a  poem  on  the  first  page  of  the  Temple  Herald  (our  church 
calendar)  every  Sunday  throughout  the  year.  And  here  they 
are,  52 — fifty-two — count  them — fifty-two — 52. 

They  were  written  as  preludes  to  the  morning  sermons, 
being  based  upon  the  text  thereof.  Each  one  of  them  was 
accompanied  by  an  illustration — a  picture  I  found  somewhere 
that  fitted  the  subject,  and  you  may  note  traces  here  and  there 
of  a  slightly  veiled  allusion  to  some  pictorial  illustration. 

Anyhow;  here  they  are.  I  have  called  the  collection  by 
forty-two  different  titles,  and  out  of  the  forty-two  I  have 
selected  for  the  name — "The  Silver  Trumpets." 

I  think  now  any  of  the  other  thirty-nine  are  better  than 
this  one.  But  I  can't  guess  which  one  is  better  than  all  the 
thirty-eight.  Ah  me!  A  baby's  troubles  begin  with  its  name. 
But,  like  many  good  people,  I  wanted  a  Bible  name  for  my 
baby,  so  when  I  read  in  Numbers  10,  2:  "  Make  thee  two  trum 
pets  of  silver — that  thou  mayest  use  them  for  the  calling  of  the 
assembly  and  for  the  journeying  of  the  camps,"  I  bethought 

351 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

me  that  these  little  blasts  or  flourishes  on  my  little  tin  trumpet 
set  the  Assembly  at  our  great  Temple  in  the  order  of  worship, 
and  gave  the  signal  for  the  journey  of  the  week.  Hence  the 
final  selection  of  a  name.  What  a  long  explanation  for  a  little 
name  for  a  small  baby!  I  will  embody  it  in  the  "Foreword". 
It  must  have  been  a  foreword,  mustn't  it? 

Well,  take  the  baby  and  dandle  it;  guess  how  much  it 
weighs?  Who  does  it  look  like?  I  have  had  great  happiness 
in  the  borning  of  the  Fiftytwoplets.  I  would  like  to  see  the 
darling  in  a  pretty  dress — I  am  no  Quaker — but  not  a  hobble, 
please.  I  would  like  the  copyright  in  my  own  name — that's 
Daddy's  carnal  pride. 

Cordially  yours, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

When  the  copy  for  his  Sunday  School  Times  articles 
with  reference  to  the  war  were  being  prepared  for  publi 
cation,  some  editing  was  done  in  the  office  that  called 
forth  a  letter  from  Mr.  Burdette  in  which  he  said: 

All  my  life  I  have  pushed  the  "Lights"  to  the  front  in  my 
work,  and  have  used  the  "Shadows"  merely  as  backgrounds  to 
emphasize  the  light,  and  I  don't  know  that  I  can  keep  up  a 
pathetic  series  of  chapters.  Dear  Man,  I  have  to  preach  short 
sermons  and  make  short  prayers,  lest  my  heart  should  break 
into  laughter  and  scandalize  a  congregation  which  may  not 
realize  what  a  joyous  thing  religion  is  to  me. 

And  when  the  series  was  ready  for  publication,  he 
sent  this  note: 

As  to  the  title  for  the  entire  series — well,  you  know  what 
Gen.  Sherman  said  war  was?  Or,  rather,  is?  Well,  "  Through 
Hell  to  Heaven" — that  is  coming  home,  is  the  most  striking 
title  I  can  think  of.  If  your  blessed  old  Cromwellian  father 
were  in  command,  I  could  see  him  shake  his  head  with  a  for 
giving  smile  on  his  face.  But  I've  picked  out  something  else, 
not  quite  so  harsh.  So  our  ship  is  christened  with  a  bottle  of 
ink,  and  you  may  knock  away  the  stays  and  launch  her  when 
you  please. 
352 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS 

He  did  occasional  work  for  the  Ladies  Home  Journal, 
whose  editor,  Mr.  Edward  W.  Bok,  he  had  known  well 
in  Pennsylvania  days.  Writing  to  him  toward  the 
close  of  his  life  work  he  said: 

And  you  don't  know  how  delighted  I  am  to  get  back  to  the 
magazine.  At  my  age  one  should  be  past  such  a  feeling,  but 
I  was  as  proud  and  happy  when  you  accepted  "One  Chair  in 
My  Pulpit"  as  I  was  ages  ago  when  you  printed  the  first  num 
ber  of  "From  a  New  Ink  Stand".  Just  as  proud,  and  that 
new  ink  stand  spilled  its  first  quill  full  across  the  pages  of  the 
Journal  away  back  in  the  early  90's,  when  you  were  up  at  old 
435  Arch  Street.  What  ancient  history! 

After  months  of  suffering,  a  physician  administered 
to  him  who  gave  him  relief  and  quickly  health  began  to 
be  restored. 

With  his  physical  recovery,  his  mentality  became 
alert  and  active  and  in  its  old  form,  as  shown  by  a  talk 
he  gave  December  6,  1909,  before  the  Church  Fed 
eration  meeting  held  in  Temple  Auditorium,  on 
"  Church  Unity",  which  carried  so  much  of  his  philoso 
phy.  He  said  in  part: 

We  have  been  talking  about  church  union  for  years.  And 
the  great  opposition  to  it  has  largely  come  from  little  fellows 
who,  because  they  can't  swim,  are  afraid  they  will  be  swallowed 
out  of  sight  in  the  great  ocean  of  Christian  union  and  harmony. 
They  need  not  be  afraid.  They'll  float.  No  matter  if  the 
churches  come  together  in  a  maelstrom,  the  apples  and  corks 
will  go  bobbing  around  on  the  surface,  down  in  the  deepest 
hollows  and  capping  the  stormiest  crests  of  the  shouting  billows. 

There  are  some  people  who  never  quite  rejoice  with  the 
rest  of  us  because  they  are  too  heavy  to  fly  and  too  light  to  sink. 
So  they  never  know  the  ecstasy  of  the  upper  ether,  between 
the  earth  and  the  stars,  nor  the  profound  depths  into  which 
the  soul  goes  down  sometimes,  to  find  itself  alone  with  God. 

The  union  of  the  churches ?  The  unity  of  the  Spirit?  The 
unity  of  the  faith?  Are  we  waiting  for  it?  I'm  sorry  for  the 

23  353 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

man  who  is.    Are  we  ready  for  it?     I'm  just  as  sorry  for  the 
man  who  isn't.     They're  both  out  of  place  and  time. 

Do  we  wait,  then,  while  we  pray  and  hope  for  the  unity  of 
the  church  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  our  one  Lord?  Why, 
men  and  brethren,  it's  here!  What  do  I  care  for  the  denomina 
tional  badge  on  the  collar  of  a  man's  coat,  when  finding  me 
sore  beset  by  those  robbers,  pain  and  poverty,  and  sickness, 
and  he  stops,  after  ordained  priest  and  consecrated  Levite 
have  gone  by,  to  pour  oil  into  my  smarting  wounds,  wrap  his 
own  cloak  about  me,  wind  his  arms  around  me  to  lift  me  up, 
while  he  says  to  the  commercialism  of  the  world,  "  Take  care, 
good  care  of  him;  I'll  pay  you."  Unity  of  the  churches?  I 
don't  care  for  the  name.  I  bless  God  for  the  fact. 

Though  his  health  improved  so  that  in  January  of 
1910  he  was  able  to  take  a  trip  to  Honolulu,  where  he 
remained  for  some  months  under  the  beneficial  condi 
tions  there,  and  continued  his  trip  to  Japan  and  China, 
there  was  never  any  time  after  this  when  he  felt  for  one 
moment  he  could  have  carried  the  burdens  of  Temple 
Baptist  Church  or  of  any  continuous  work. 

After  his  return  to  California  in  the  summer  of  1910, 
he  occasionally  preached  in  the  pulpits  of  the  Presby 
terian  church  of  Pasadena,  the  Congregational  Church 
of  Los  Angeles,  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Los  Angeles, 
the  various  Baptist  churches  and  supplied  a  summer  in 
the  Temple  Baptist  Church,  but  was  unequal  to  any 
heavier  demands. 

But  that  he  did  make  an  occasional  address,  is  shown 
by  the  record  that  at  a  Memorial  Service  for  the 
Titanic's  dead,  Mr.  Burdette  speaking  for  "The  Army" 
paid  this  tribute  to  Archibald  Butt: 

So  this  Soldier,  being  in  the  place  of  the  Sacrifice,  repre 
sented  the  army  in  its  best  and  noblest  service.  His  sword  was 
sheathed;  his  arms  were  strong  with  gentleness.  The  more 
fragile  the  life  in  peril,  the  more  tenderly  was  it  guarded. 

354 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

Who  shall  measure  what  God  has  purchased  at  the  price  of 
this  soldier's  life? 

Whether  it  bought  much  or  little,  or  nothing,  the  Sacrifice 
never  questioned.  To  the  soldier,  the  path  of  duty  lay  before 
him,  plain  as  the  stars  in  heaven  above  him.  It  was  not  one 
of  two  things  which  he  might  do — it  was  the  one  supreme  thing 
which  he  must  do.  "Noblesse  oblige." 

In  the  camera  of  the  darkness  of  that  April  morning  love 
caught  and  forever  holds  for  us  a  picture  of  the  man  who  stood 
for  the  American  army  in  that  hour  of  fear  and  death. 

We  see  him  standing  with  his  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  a 
friend.  His  was  a  loving  nature — a  friend  till  death.  He  looked 
after  the  departing  boats  with  longing  glances,  as  a  man  who 
looked  at  heaven  with  level  eyes  and  saw  God  in  the  faces  of 
his  friends.  From  the  doomed  wreck  he  looked  down  at  the 
scattered  squadron  of  lifeboats.  Some  of  them  weakly  rowed 
by  sobbing  women — women  with  husbands,  sons,  lovers  on  the 
ship  of  death. 

They  were  but  a  little  way  off.  There  was  yet  time  for  a 
leap  to  life  and  safety.  The  ship  careened  to  its  last  plunge 
down  into  the  black  dungeons  of  its  pitiless  enemy,  the  sea. 
The  soldier  glanced  around  the  scattered  lifeboats  as  the 
adjutant  glances  along  the  line  of  glittering  bayonets  in  the 
quiet  hour  of  the  evening  parade.  They  are  all  there — the 
weak,  the  helpless,  the  women,  and  the  children.  The  soldier 
turned  and  faced  his  Great  Commander,  saluted  and  reported: 

"Sir,  the  parade  is  formed!" 

"To  your  post!" 

And  with  the  old  soldierly  bearing  and  the  firm,  martial 
tread,  he  passed  through  the  portals  of  darkness  into  the  land 
of  glory,  to  take  his  place  among  the  immortals  who  have  died 
for  men.  And  the  smile  that  lingered  to  the  last  of  earth  upon 
his  face  carried  its  sunshine  into  the  sea. 

In  1912  a  trip  was  planned  to  Europe  for  the  benefit 
of  my  health,  and  in  May  we  left  New  York  for  Europe, 
intending  to  have  a  brief  automobile  trip  through 
England,  going  to  Paris  and  Bad  Nauheim.  As  this 
trip  was  on  account  of  my  health,  we  found  before 

355 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

reaching  London  that  it  would  be  better  to  go  to  Bad 
Nauheim  at  once.  We  landed  at  Cherbourg,  going  up 
to  Paris  and  thence  to  Bad  Nauheim,  where  we  both 
took  the  baths,  which  Mr.  Burdette  declared  on  his 
part  were  entirely  for  my  benefit. 

In  a  letter  to  his  sister  Jo,  written  from  Bad  Nau 
heim,  he  says: 

It  is  not  an  exciting  life  but  it  fills  up  the  time.  When  we 
are  not  dressing  for  something  we  are  undressing  because  we 
have  just  had  it.  We  wear  our  clothes  out  in  the  dressing  room 
before  we  have  a  chance  to  show  them  on  the  street. 

We  celebrated  my  birthday — Number  68,  count  them — by 
spending  the  day  in  a  place  that  again  would  have  interested 
Gus  mightily.  It  is  the  oldest  Roman  camp  in  the  world — the 
only  one  that  has  ever  been  wholly  restored  and  reconstructed 
along  the  lines  of  its  old  ruins.  The  Kaiser  had  this  work  done. 
It  was  a  camp  for  permanent  occupation,  splendidly  fortified, 
with  fine  buildings  for  the  quarters  of  the  officers  and  soldiers, 
and  for  the  offices  of  the  civil  administration.  The  museums 
are  rich  in  the  relics  of  weapons,  jewelry  and  utensils  of  all 
sorts  that  have  been  dug  up  here.  It  was  made  here  when  the 
Romans  were  trying  to  extend  and  hold  their  empire  over  the 
Germans,  away  back  when,  as  we  learned  at  school,  "Omnia 
Gallia  in  tres  partes  divisa"  wast. 

The  ancient  batteries  of  catapults  and  machines  for  throw 
ing  huge  javelins  are  reconstructed,  giving  the  camp  a  singu 
larly  and  most  impressive  sense  of  reality.  It  would  not  have 
surprised  me  much  if  a  helmeted  Roman  sentinel  had  halted 
me  with  a  "Quo  Vadis?"  If  he  had  I  would  have  said,  "Oh— 
ho?  You  are  one  of  the  beggars  who  arranged  that  'twenty-six 
prepositions  shall  be  followed  by  the  accusative?'  You  are  the 
pelican  I've  been  laying  for/' 

And  I  would  have  had  one  round  with  him  anyhow  just  to 
avenge  my  bitter  boyhood  on  Andrews  and  Stoddard's  Latin 
Grammar. 

We  were  in  Europe  with  two  friends,  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Merrifield,  when  his  68th  birthday  was  celebrated  at 

356 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE  WITH  MR.  KENNEDY  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 
AND  MR.  K.  ITO,  PROPRIETOR  OF  THE  MANCHURIAN  DAILY 
NEWS  AT  DAIREN 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS 

Bad  Nauheim,   and   Dr.   Merrifield  wrote  him  this 
appreciation: 

You  are  68  "years  young"  to-day — the  youngest  oldster  I 
have  ever  known.  I  little  dreamed,  back  on  the  Vermont  farm 
forty  years  or  more  ago — when  I  first  came  to  admire  you 
through  your  Hawkeye  articles,  copied  each  week  into  the 
Vermont  Phoenix  and  so  brought  regularly  to  our  home  and 
hearts — that  I  should  ever  be  privileged  to  be  numbered  among 
your  personal  friends.  But  so  it  is;  and  to-day  I  bring  to  you 
my  heart's  homage,  grateful  that  the  pen  which  charmed  at 
morn  still  charms  at  eve.  Did  your  countless  hosts  of  admirers, 
scattered  all  over  the  American  Continent,  know  that  to-day 
is  the  68th  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  genial  "Bob"  Burdette, 
who  has  delighted  millions  of  hearts  with  his  kindly  humor  and 
never  wounded  one,  they  would  join  with  me  in  heartfelt 
greetings  and  in  the  expressed  hope  that  the  pen  and  tongue 
which  have  charmed  a  continent  for  forty  years  may  retain 
undiminished  their  magic  power  for  many  years  to  come. 

With  affectionate  admiration  and  "many  happy  returns", 
may  I  claim  the  high  privilege  of  subscribing  myself 

Your  friend, 

WEBSTER  MERRIFIELD. 

Not  receiving  all  the  benefit  I  had  hoped,  we  later 
went  to  Switzerland  and  from  there  to  Baden  Baden 
where  I  was  definitely  improved  in  health.  Mr.  Bur 
dette  at  this  time,  seemingly  so  well,  had  devoted  him 
self  to  the  pleasure  of  the  place  and  writing  rather  than 
taking  the  baths.  On  our  way  home,  before  reaching 
New  York,  it  became  apparent  that  he  was  not  as  well 
as  he  had  thought,  and  my  regret  was  often  expressed 
that  he  had  not  joined  me  in  the  cure  at  Baden  Baden. 

His  strength  was  not  sufficient  for  the  abundant 
tasks  he  had  been  able  to  perform  in  all  the  years  of  his 
active  life  up  to  that  time.  On  many  days  it  was  not 
possible  for  him  to  leave  the  home,  and  he  found, 

357 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

apparently,  consolation  in  his  diary,  which  was  more 
faithfully  kept  in  the  time  following  the  beginning  of 
his  illness  than  at  any  other  previous  time  in  his  life. 
There  are  entries  early  in  1913  that  indicate  the  begin 
ning  of  the  break  in  his  health.  On  February  13th  of 
that  year  there  is  an  entry: 

R.  (as  he  designates  himself)  is  very  weak  today,  and  suffer 
ing  much  from  his  intestinal  derangement.  He  ate  no  supper 
and  went  to  bed  at  curfew. 

And  on  the  following  morning: 

R.  got  up  feeling  very  weak,  and  when  he  tried  to  work, 
only  puttered. 

These  were,  however,  occasional  evidences  of  the 
onset  of  disease,  and  there  were  intermittent  periods  of 
strength  and  the  old  ability  to  work,  for  on  Sunday, 
February  23d,  he  preached  from  his  old  pulpit  in  the 
"Temple",  before  an  overflowing  congregation,  more 
than  five  hundred  persons  being  turned  away. 

From  that  time  on  he  worked  less  and  he  began 
more  and  more  to  realize  he  was  an  invalid,  and  though 
he  occasionally  did  public  work,  it  was  with  great 
expenditure  of  effort. 

On  Sunday,  March  2,  1913,  he  preached  again  in 
the  Pasadena  Presbyterian  Church,  the  first  pulpit  he 
occupied  after  entering  the  active  ministry.  His  sermon 
was  on  "Infinite  Love"  and  made  a  deep  impression, 
as  it  seemed  he  was  reciting  his  testing  experience. 
This  was  the  last  time  he  preached  in  the  church  and 
his  diary  indicated  that  he  preached  to  "standing 
room  ".  But  he  says  further,  "  I  was  not  at  all  well  and 
my  voice  was  weak  but  I  pulled  through  all  right. 
This  is  the  last  sermon  this  month." 

He  attended  the  25th  Anniversary  dinner  of  the 
358 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

Pasadena  Board  of  Trade  in  April,  as  one  of  the  guest 
of  honor  and  speakers,  and  observes  that — 

He  got  along  very  well,  but  he  sure  was  tired  and  weak,  and 
it  was  a  pull  up  hill  through  the  sand  all  the  way. 

He  very  much  enjoyed  his  companionship  with 
Henry  Van  Dyke,  who  visited  Sunnycrest  that  winter, 
and  he  notes  with  pleasure  the  attendance  upon  delight 
ful  dinners  given  in  Dr.  Van  Dyke's  honor. 

Daily  life  became  for  him  less  active,  his  preaching 
and  lecturing  more  occasional,  the  afternoon  "siesta" 
an  institution,  the  hours  of  his  morning  work  shorter, 
and  reading  and  music  the  greatest  of  his  delights. 
"Curfew",  as  he  always  indicated  his  bed  time,  was 
early,  and  sleep  came  to  be  wooed  with  greater  diffi 
culty.  An  entry  in  his  diary  in  March  reads: 

R.  feels  miserable  these  days  24  hours  a  day. 
Later  in  March  there  is  this  entry: 

Saw  Dr.  who  put  me  on  rigid  regimen  and  sentenced  me  to 
bed  for  three  days. 

He  maintained,  however,  his  interest  in  civic  and 
public  affairs,  and  in  referring  to  a  municipal  election 
in  April,  and  the  defeat  of  a  candidate,  he  says: 

7000  persons  registered  who  did  not  vote.  Do  you  suppose 
I  would  have  been  defeated  by  100  votes  with  7000  lying 
around  to  be  picked  up?  That  is  not  the  kind  of  politics  I  was 
trained  up  in.  It  is  all  right  for  the  office  to  seek  the  man, 
but  I  observe  that  it  usually  seeks  the  man  who  chases  it  into 
a  corner  and  throttles  it  into  accepting  him. 

In  May  he  was  so  far  improved  that  he  lectured  at 
Reno,  and  delivered  the  baccalaureate  sermon  at  the 
University  of  Nevada  on  "Under  Sealed  Orders".  All 
of  his  old  eloquence  and  power  of  expression  were  in  evi- 

359 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

dence,  but  in  addition  there  seemed  a  quality  more 
accentuated  than  ever  before,  the  fervor  of  a  man 
delivering  a  message  under  Divine  guidance. 

Returning  by  the  way  of  San  Francisco  he  gave  the 
baccalaureate  sermon  for  Stanford  University,  May 
18th,  and  on  May  30th,  he  preached  the  Memorial  Day 
sermon  to  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  at  Temple 
Auditorium,  Los  Angeles.  June  8th,  he  gave  a  sermon 
before  the  religious  associations  of  the  University  of 
Redlands,  on  " Beauty  and  Strength". 

In  June,  1889,  he  preached  his  first  baccalaureate 
sermon  before  the  Class  of  '89,  at  the  State  Normal 
School,  West  Chester,  Pa. — so  almost  a  quarter  of  a 
century  had  intervened  between  the  first  and  the  last, 
when  on  June  12, 1913,  he  gave  his  last  public  utterance, 
which  was  a  commencement  address  before  three  hun 
dred  graduates  of  the  University  of  Southern  California, 
on  "God's  Country".  Following  this,  we  went  for  a 
trip  to  the  Yosemite,  which  filled  several  weeks  of  the 
early  summer  and  gave  him  great  pleasure.  This  was 
destined  to  be  his  last  long  trip  away  from  Pasadena. 

In  July,  his  diary  notes  that  "his  stomach  is  'revo 
lutionary'  again". 

Upon  our  return  from  Yosemite,  we  went  to  our 
summer  cottage  at  Clifton-by-the-Sea,  where  he  spent 
the  days  of  more  or  less  invalidism  writing  to  his  friends, 
and  occasionally  contributing  to  the  magazines  and 
papers.  In  a  letter  to  a  friend,  he  writes: 

We  are  running  on  the  usual  schedule  down  at  Eventide. 
I  have  lost  my  batting  streak  and  my  weight  has  dwindled 
to  127.  I  have  placed  myself  in  the  hands  of  Dr.  Millspaugh, 
of  Los  Angeles,  who  is  recommended  to  me  as  a  leading  special 
ist  in  stomach  troubles,  and  he  certainly  is  finding  out  all  about 
me.  I  am  as  weak  as  water,  but  I  strongly  hope  that  I  will 
soon  strike  the  upgrade  again, 
360 


THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

Clara  is  buoyant  and  radiant  and  happy  as  a  school  girl, 
in  spite  of  being  burdened  with  a  sick  old  husband.  She  gives 
most  of  her  strength,  all  of  her  time  and  more  of  her  thought 
to  me.  God  bless  her!  These  afternoon  days  would  be  all 
November  but  for  her  care. 

The  Pacific  was  always  a  delight  to  him,  and  a  July 
notation  reads: 

The  gulls  have  been  unusually  numerous  all  day,  and  the 
fishing  has  been  fine  for  men  and  birds.  Little  steam  and  gaso 
line  launches  and  fleets  of  row  boats  have  dotted  the  blue  sea, 
and  many  have  been  the  broken  circles  of  water  which  drew 
the  screaming  birds  by  scores  and  attracted  the  boats  as  well. 
All  this  told  of  a  general  banquet  for  everybody  save  the  guests 
of  honor,  for  the  big  fish  were  feeding  on  the  little  fish  below, 
driving  them  to  the  surface  for  the  gulls,  who  passed  what  they 
could  not  catch  back  to  the  big  fish,  and  the  fishermen  came 
with  nets  and  lines  that  gathered  in  everything  but  the  gulls, 
so  everybody  was  happy  but  the  little  fish,  as  usual. 

On  his  69th  birthday  he  wrote: 

Every  year  of  the  69  came  along  and  laid  its  long  forgotten 
burdens  on  my  old  back.  Nevertheless  I  had  a  good  time.  The 
day  was  beautiful,  and  love  came  under  the  years  and  lifted 
them  as  lightly  as  the  sunlight  carries  a  cloud.  Violet  gave  all 
the  day  to  amusing  and  cheering  her  husband.  A  little  music, 
a  little  reading,  a  great  deal  of  talking,  some  hand  in  hand 
dreaming,  and  the  day  was  golden  with  promise  and  sweet 
with  its  tenderness. 

In  August  his  illness  grew  for  a  time  more  acute,  and 
the  possibility  of  a  surgical  operation  was  discussed 
with  his  physician.  To  this,  however,  he  objected,  as 
there  was  no  positive  assurance  of  definite  result.  In 
August  he  notes: 

As  the  Chautauqua  management  continues  to  announce 
my  coming  lectures,  I  sent  notices  this  morriing  to  the  Times, 
Herald  and  Tribune  that  my  engagements  have  all  been 
cancelled. 

361 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

To  James  B.  Weaver  of  Des  Moines,  Iowa,  a  son  of 
the  distinguished  Iowa  pioneer,  who  was  a  close  friend 
of  Burdette  in  the  early  days,  he  wrote  in  expressing 
his  inability  to  attend  a  home  coming  meeting  of  the 
former  lowans  who  had  achieved  distinction,  to  be 
guests  of  the  Iowa  Press  and  Authors  Club: 

I  wish  I  could  come  home  with  you  boys  next  October. 
How  I  would  enjoy  myself  with  the  men  I  loved  and  played 
with  when  hate  was  a  thing  as  strange  as  murder.  Sometimes 
we  did  play  with  hard  gloves,  but  as  I  remember,  the  fellow  who 
got  knocked  down  never  got  knocked  out.  He  fought  just  as 
hard  on  his  back  as  on  his  feet.  Harder,  in  fact,  because 
when  he  was  down  he  fought  with  his  head,  hands,  feet,  claws 
and  teeth.  Now  I  am  old  and  I  cannot  even  fight  with  a  toma 
hawk,  and  I  don't  want  to. 

On  another  occasion,  writing  his  friend  Strickland 
Gillilan,  who  had  sent  him  a  message  of  cheer  on  the 
occasion  of  Riley's  birthday,  when  some  choice  spirits 
had  foregathered,  he  said: 

I  do  want  you  boys  to  know  how  greatly  I  appreciate  the 
good  things  you  said  about  me  when  you  foregathered  on  Jim's 
birthday.  To  think  that  kid  is  only  60.  He  has  yet  ten  years 
of  good  work  left  in  his  bones. 

And  in  the  same  letter,  referring  to  his  gathering 
together  of  the  fugitive  sketches  and  poems  from  news 
paper  files  into  scrap  books,  he  wrote: 

My  scrap  book  stuff,  my  own  output,  is  piled  up  in  my  den 
like  bound  files  of  newspapers.  Sometimes,  as  I  run  over  a 
few  pages  of  it,  I  would  give  several  dollars  and  twenty-five 
cents  to  know  what  I  meant  by  it,  and  some  of  it,  well,  I  would 
really  admire  it  if  any  other  fellow  had  written  it. 

His  letters  were  filled  with  observations  wrought 
out  of  his  experience,  and  showing  his  philosophical 
understanding  of  life,  for  instance  this  sentence: 
362 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

There  are  so  many  things  in  this  world  and  this  life  we 
cannot  understand  that  it  is  a  good  thing  we  shall  have  all 
eternity  in  which  to  study  some  of  the  things  which  the  summer 
schools  of  philosophy  find  out  all  about  during  the  dog  days. 

And  to  his  friend  McManus  he  harked  back  across 
the  years  when  he  wrote: 

Oh,  McManus!  What  an  awful  big  old  wilderness  of  a 
world  it  is.  Who  is  the  fool  that  thinks  it  is  so  little?  Seas  and 
rivers  and  prairies  and  mountains  stretching  out  a  million  miles 
between  friends  who  ought  to  be  side-fence  neighbors.  I  hope 
Heaven  is  a  nice  little  place,  not  much  bigger  than  Howe,  where 
we  can  all  be  close  together. 

Writing  to  his  old  friend,  "Doc"  Worthington,  he 
said: 

I  don't  mind  growing  old.  That  I  always  looked  forward 
to  with  a  certain  pleasure,  but  I  don't  like  being  sick.  I  love 
to  see  my  friends — but  a  crowd  of  people  tires  the  heart  out  of 
me.  I  have  ceased  to  preach  and  lecture — pulpit  and  platform 
days  have  gone  by.  But  I  still  write  a  little  every  week.  Well  ; 
I  have  had  a  good  time  all  my  life.  Everything  has  come  my 
way.  I  have  had  more  friends  at  every  turn  than  I  could  ever 
count.  My  dreams  have  nearly  all  come  true.  I  have  laughed 
a  hundred  times  where  I  cried  once.  And  I  have  no  complaint 
to  make  of  life  or  this  world.  It's  a  beautiful  world  and  a  good 
one.  But  there  is  one  far  more  beautiful  and  infinitely  better. 
That  is  one  of  the  things  I  know  most  positively,  most  certainly. 
The  God  who  made  this  world  could  easily  make  a  better  one. 

Good-bye,  Doc.  Dear  friend  and  loyal  comrade,  my  mem 
ory  runs  back  very  lovingly  to  the  days  when  we  were  school 
boys  in  the  old  "Peoria  High".  And  when  I  lay  down  the  pen 
I  will  dream  of  them  for  a  happy  hour.  God  bless  you,  and 
all  who  are  dear  to  you. 

And  in  the  same  letter,  in  referring  to  the  beginnings 
of  the  illness  from  which  eventually  he  died,  he  said: 

I  am  not  an  invalid  yet.  I  am  not  bed-ridden,  nor  yet 
housebound,  but  I  am  weak  and  the  pen  and  the  machine  too, 

363 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

for  that  matter  has  grown  to  be  a  grievous  burden  to  me.  The 
medicine  men  name  my  complaint  "Chronic  Pancreatitis", 
and  it  is  coming  to  closer  grips  with  me  day  by  day.  They  did 
think  very  seriously  of  sending  me  down  to  Baltimore  to  have 
the  great  surgeon  at  Johns  Hopkins  take  me  apart  and  see  what 
made  me  act  that  way,  but  I  am  past  69,  and  there  was  some 
question  as  to  their  getting  the  old  man  back  together  again 
without  losing  some  of  the  pieces. 

Short  motor  trips  were  taken,  but  they  were  not 
always  possible,  for  he  notes  the  striking  of  "joy  rides 
from  the  docket,  because  the  best  road  to  Long  Beach 
is  a  succession  of  comminuted  fractures". 

He  enjoyed  brief  visits  from  close  friends.  There 
are  many  references  to  his  friend,  Norman  Bridge  of 
Los  Angeles,  in  whose  stimulating  companionship  he 
took  great  delight. 

He  took  much  enjoyment  in  the  company  of  his 
little  granddaughter,  Clara,  and  says: 

It  is  a  good  thing  for  us  to  have  young  life  come  in  now  and 
then  and  dynamite  us  out  of  the  ruts. 

Before  he,  himself,  had  reached  middle  life,  he  wrote 
this  bit  of  sweet  philosophy: 

"  But/'  you  say,  "cannot  one  be  young-hearted  after  forty?" 
Yea,  beloved,  after  sixty  or  seventy.  Down  to  the  days  of 
whitehaired  old  age  the  heart  may  glow  with  tenderness,  and 
the  quiet  warmth  of  the  June  sunshine  of  years  ago  stored 
in  its  chambers  as  years  ago  the  sun  stored  his  heat  and  light 
away  in  the  forests  of  the  earth,  to  dance  and  gleam  and  glow 
again  in  merry  flames  and  summer  warmth  upon  the  coal-fed 
hearths  to-day. 

For  this  reason,  oh,  my  young  readers,  rejoice  in  the  days 
of  your  youth,  when  the  light  is  sweet  and  it  is  a  pleasant  thing 
for  the  eyes  to  behold  the  sun;  let  your  hearts  cheer  for  you 
in  these  days  of  sunshine  and  nights  of  starlight,  and  "remove 
anger  from  thy  heart,  and  put  away  evil  from  thy  flesh,"  re 
membering  "the  days  of  darkness,  for  they  shall  be  many!" 
364 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

And  the  firelight  that  will  come  to  glow  upon  the  hearth 
and  dance  in  warmth  and  tenderness  upon  the  walls  of  your 
heart's  chambers  in  those  days  will  be  the  light  you  are  storing 
away  now.  Be  happy  and  light-hearted,  then;  but  be  the 
house  of  your  mirth  as  pure  as  a  temple,  and  your  laughter 
sinless  as  the  songs  of  birds;  in  all  your  mirth  and  dancing, 
exalt  Wisdom;  and,  indeed  she  shall  bring  thee  to  honor,  and 
give  to  thine  head  an  ornament  of  grace;  then  shall  the  years 
of  thy  life  be  many  and  thy  heart  be  ever  young. 

In  September  there  was  a  consultation  of  physicians, 
and  of  one  of  the  consultants  he  says: 

He  asked  a  Catling  gun  series  of  questions  that  began 
with  July  30, 1844,  at  Greensboro,  Pa.,  and  came  down  smoothly 
to  September  6,  1913,  Los  Angeles,  without  a  break  or  a  jar. 

Again  in  September  he  notes  that — 

"bed  is  one  of  the  nicest  places  in  the  world  to  sleep  in.     It  is 
the  worst  place  in  the  world  to  lie  awake. 

Much  he  enjoyed  a  visit  from  his  son  Robin  in  the 
fall,  and  he  notes: 

Robin  sat  at  the  piano  and  played  for  an  hour  in  his  sweet 
old  way,  a  pot  pourri  of  all  the  old  and  some  of  the  new  tunes, 
all  woven  together  in  Robin's  own  fashion.  Hour  after  hour 
he  plays,  his  soul  absorbed  in  his  music,  and  life  a  vision  for 
him.  I  will  hear  him  so  long  as  I  live,  and  I  will  catch  echoes 
of  his  music  in  the  chorus  of  heaven. 

And  on  his  son's  departure: 

We  all  knelt  together  in  the  sun  room  and  read  from  Acts  21, 
the  parting  on  the  shore  at  Tyre,  then  a  little  prayer,  and  Violet 
took  him  to  Los  Angeles,  for  it  is  better  that  I  should  not  go, 
and  my  last  memory  of  him  is  very  sweet  in  beautiful,  peaceful 
Eventide.  "And  we  kneeled  down  on  the  shore  and  prayed, 
and  when  we  had  taken  our  leave  one  of  another,  we  took  ship, 
and  they  returned  home  again."  (Acts  21 :  6,  7.) 

365 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

He  had  a  Scriptural  quotation  to  fit  almost  every 
occasion.  Upon  the  return  from  Eventide  to  Pasadena 
his  chauffeur  was  arrested  for  running  over  a  dog,  and 
in  noting  the  $10  fine  subsequently  imposed,  he  says: 

About  one  dollar  for  running  over  it  and  nine  dollars  for 
running  away  without  stopping.  "Agree  with  thine  adversary 
quickly  whilst  thou  art  in  the  way  with  him." 

On  Monday,  October  20th,  he  says: 

I  compiled  a  little  of  my  Philosophy  of  Life  for  the  Times, 
but  the  burden  soon  became  too  heavy  and  I  laid  it  down  and 
lay  down  beside  it. 

But  work  grew  occasionally  and  he  observes  that— 
"He  must  return  to  do  a  little  long  neglected  grinding 
at  his  dusty  mill/' 

Here,  in  the  afternoon  of  the  days,  and  in  the  after 
noon  time  of  life,  he  wrote  his  "Little  Philosophy  of 
Life",  which  seemed  to  be  the  sum  total  of  all  life  had 
meant  for  him.  It  was  published  in  December,  1913, 
and  was  dedicated  to  his  little  granddaughter,  Clara 
Bradley  Wheeler,  with  this  beautiful  dedication: 

To  My  Little  Granddaughter 
CLARA  BRADLEY  WHEELER 

Who,  with  tottering  baby  steps,  is  coming  in  to  the  entrance 
of  the  Stage  of  Life,  just  as  her  Grandfather,  with  footsteps 
equally  uncertain,  is  slowly  passing  out  at  its  Exit.  The  baby, 
doubtless  wondering  much  that  the  World  should  be  so  immeas 
urably  large.  He  certainly,  marvelling,  as  he  looks  back,  that 
a  Stage  so  small  and  circumscribed  could  hold  so  many  people. 
She  looks  at  her  Grandfather  with  the  Wonder- Wisdom  in  the 
baby  eyes,  but  she  does  not  know  what  he  is  thinking,  nor  how 
much  he  knows. 

And  he,  looking  at  the  Little  One  with  the  meditative 
inquiry  of  Old  Age,  knows  just  as  little  what  she  is  thinking, 
just  as  little  how  much  she  knows.  For  a  handful  of  days  only 
366 


PAPA"   BURDETTE  AND   CLARA 


THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

have  they  known  one  another,  each  speaking  a  language  strange 
and  incomprehensible  to  the  other.  But  the  two  hearts,  one 
old  as  the  ashes  of  last  year's  camp  fires,  the  other  young  and 
fragrant  as  the  roses  of  this  June  morning,  have  knitted  them 
selves  together  with  a  love  that  will  outlive  Time.  This  is 
one  of  the  Beautiful  Mysteries  of  Life.  "And  the  Evening  and 
the  Morning  are  another  Day." 

No  more  beautiful  review  of  this  booklet  was  made 
than  that  written  by  Dr.  Robert  R.  Meredith: 

I  have  just  laid  down  "A  Little  Philosophy  of  Life",  after 
reading  it  for  the  third  time.  To  me  it  is  most  charming  and 
refreshing.  There  is  nothing  "little"  about  it  but  its  size; 
and  bulk  is  not  beauty,  nor  is  bigness  greatness.  It  is  a  true 
philosophy — cheerful  and  cheering,  warm  and  radiant  with 
love,  grounded  in  truth  and  faith,  and  inspiring  spirit-stirring 
hopes.  It  carries  a  message  of  good  cheer  that  this  weary 
world  greatly  needs  to  hear.  May  the  Lord  put  his  blessing 
upon  it,  and  give  it  wings.  It  certainly  has  done  me  immense 
good.  I  hope  to  be  a  better  man  for  the  reading  of  it. 

A  companion  of  this  little  book  was  compiled  the 
following  Easter  under  the  title  of  "Alpha  and  Omega" 
and  dedicated  to  his  other  little  granddaughter,  Caro 
line  Virginia  Burdette: 

To  my  Little  Granddaughter 
CAROLINE  VIRGINIA  BURDETTE 

A  Loving  Easter  Greeting: 
To  a  Tiny  Bud  of  Human  Immortality 

A  Little  Life  that  please  God 

Will  unfold  its  tender  leaves  into 

Fragrant  petals  of  Beautiful  Girlhood 

Perfumed  Fruitage  of  Gracious  Womanhood 

All  the  Way  of  Her  Pilgrimage  may 

Hope  run  singing  before  her 

Faith  walk  praying  beside  her 

And  God's  twin  angels,  Mercy  and  Peace 

Follow  close  after  her. 

367 


ROBERT  J.    BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

In  October,  just  at  leaving  Eventide,  there  is  this 
plaintive  entry: 

I  have  been  a  daily  care.  I  wish  the  dear  Lord  would  make 
me  well  or  take  me  home. 

And  again: 

We  are  sorry  to  leave  Eventide — we  are  glad  to  get  back 
to  Sunnycrest.  I  reckon  that  is  the  way  people  feel  about 
leaving  this  world  to  go  to  Heaven. 

On  November  1st  there  is  this  entry: 

I  worked  on  my  war  sketches.  Got  rather  tired.  War  has 
been  over  so  long. 

His  love  of  flowers  was  indicated  many  times  by  his 
vivid  descriptions  of  the  flora  of  Pasadena  grounds  and 
gardens,  as  observed  by  him  in  his  latter  days. 

His  physical  condition  was  such  that  it  was  evident 
his  health  was  permanently  broken,  but  his  long 
expressed  desire  to  round  out  his  seventy  years  filled 
him  with  ambition  and  hope  to  linger,  even  in 
suffering,  until  after  July  30,  1914.  He  talked  of  it  as 
a  boy  would  talk  of  some  event  that  had  been  long 
promised  him.  He  claimed  it  with  the  faith  of  a  man 
who  had  proven  the  promises  many  times.  He  dreamed 
of  it  as  one  who  would  see  all  his  hopes  fulfilled,  and 
beyond  that  he  considered  nothing  except  borrowed 
time  that  could  never  be  repaid. 

To  his  old  friend,  Col.  Will  Visscher,  he  wrote: 

And  you  were  with  Stanley  Waterloo  at  his  last  hour  of 
foregathering  at  the  club?  Stanley  Waterloo!  I  was  a  guest 
in  his  house  ages  ago,  when  he  was  on  the  St.  Louis  Republic, 
I  think,  and  Eugene  Field  was  on  the  Journal,  and  you  were 
beginning  a  lifelong  friendship  with  that  little  circle  of  good 
comrades. 

What  a  world  it  was  then!  Morning  time  in  the  high 
368 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

Sierras,  and  the  month  of  June,  eternal  June.  The  world 
created  not  from  chaos,  but  moulded  and  welded  out  of  aspira 
tions,  ambitions  and  purposes:  Fortune  on  the  prows  and 
Pleasure  at  the  helm — 

"  Book  of  beginnings,  story  without  end, 
Each  maid  a  heroine,  and  each  man  a  friend." 

And  Stanley  has  hung  "Thirty"  on  the  hook.  Who  else 
was  there  alive  so  long  ago?  What  has  become  of  all  the  boys? 

An  illustrated  story  of  his  life  and  work  in  the  Times, 
early  in  November  gave  him  pleasure,  and  he  notes: 

Reading  Henry  Warnacks  story  of  "Daddy"  exuberantly 
illustrated. 

Many  are  the  half -philosophical,  half -poetical  allu 
sions  in  his  diary.  On  Tuesday,  November  llth,  this: 

Morning  comes  gray  like  a  day  born  old,  and  I  am  old  with 
it,  tired  and  weak  and  racked  with  pain.  Tired  me  to  read, 
or  to  talk  or  to  listen,  so  I  didn't  do  anything. 

But  a  few  days  later  he  sees  the  other  side  of  the 
picture,  when  he  says: 

Snow  white  clouds  done  in  heaps  and  drifts  over  the  bluest 
of  skies,  with  golden  sunshine  streaming  through  at  every 
opening,  and  a  breeze  pure  and  clear  and  bracing — that  is  the 
kind  of  a  morning  that  lifts  its  face  of  benediction  upon  the 
world  today,  and  I  am  better. 

And  in  making  a  notation,  evidently  altogether  for 
himself,  in  his  diary,  as  to  a  benefaction  made  by  him 
to  an  individual  in  need,  he  says: 

I  also  mailed  article  to  the  L.  H.  J.  When  I  get  a  check 
for  that  somebody  else  will  be  waiting  for  it.  I  do  try  to  keep 
my  left  hand  from  knowing  what  my  right  hand  does,  but  I 
think  the  beggar  makes  some  mighty  good  guesses. 

24  369 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

His  days  were  now  alternately  ''good  and  bad",  as 
he  notes  them  in  his  diary,  and  on  every  good  day  there 
is  a  return,  evident  from  his  written  expressions,  to 
much  of  his  old  buoyance  and  joyousness,  while  the 
bad  days  are  evidenced  by  a  patient  uncomplaining 
resignation. 

A  romantic  picture  might  be  presented  of  the  period 
between  his  first  wedding  ceremony,  which  was  a  typical 
California  wedding  at  the  old  Horse  Shoe  Ranch,  the 
Rose  property  in  Alhambra,  and  the  last  wedding  cere 
mony  he  performed,  which  was  that  of  Lieutenant 
Henry  Norman  Jensen  and  Echo  Allen  of  Pasadena 
Avenue,  Los  Angeles.  Between  these  two  were  many 
similar  occasions  but  of  infinite  variety.  The  list  would 
have  been  greater  but  for  his  refusal  to  marry  those  who 
had  been  divorced,  his  belief  being  that  if  the  church, 
through  its  ministers,  would  emphasize  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  reason  why  they  could  not  be  re-married  with 
the  sanction  of  the  church,  marriage  would  not  be  so 
lightly  entered  into,  the  divorce  evil  be  decreased  and 
the  sanctity  of  the  home  held  more  sacred. 

Referring  to  this  wedding  in  his  diary,  under  date  of 
November  17,  1913,  he  said: 

A  charming  wedding  it  was,  but  when  I  awoke  with  a  temper 
ature  of  100  degrees,  it  looked  as  though  some  other  preacher 
would  get  my  job,  but  I  rallied,  and  we  all  got  along  very  nicely. 
It  was  one  of  the  happiest  wedding  breakfasts  I  ever  attended, 
and  I  had  two  dishes  of  home-made  chocolate  ice  cream — two! 
That  is  something  to  be  remembered.  I  came  home  and  went 
to  bed  at  once,  and  did  not  get  out  of  it  for  19  hours.  No  more 
weddings,  unless  I  want  to  couple  one  with  my  own  funeral. 

And  on  the  following  day  he  notes: 

How  it  did  rain!  I  am  glad  Echo  Allen  was  married 
yesterday. 

370 


THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

He  attended  the  theatre  occasionally,  but  of  a 
modern  play  he  said: 

Once  is  enough.  I  am  afraid  modern  comedy  has  lost  its 
charm  for  me.  Hereafter  I  will  stick  to  the  old  things  that 
have  proved  themselves,  lo,  these  many  years.  Maybe,  after 
all,  the  fault  is  not  in  the  modern  drama.  It  is  hard  for  an 
old  man  to  maintain  a  youthful  mind. 

Late  in  November  he  notes,  "Bed  is  one  of  my 
favorite  resorts". 

Just  before  Christmas  he  "ran  into  Hatteras  weath 
er",  as  he  expresses  it  in  his  diary,  and  on  December 
24th  he  notes: 

I  abandoned  my  Christmas  train  and  left  all  my  things 
blocking  the  main  line  and  cluttering  the  sidings.  I  will  send 
out  what  hasn't  already  been  shipped  or  mailed  next  Christmas. 
I  can  do  nothing  more  this  year. 

His  diary  for  1914,  the  last  year  of  his  life,  was  the 
most  consistent  and  continuous  he  had  ever  kept,  and 
is  complete  except  for  occasional  breaks  when  his  weak 
ness  was  such  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  write 
at  all. 

In  January,  1914,  the  trained  nurse  who  had  been  a 
comfort  to  him  five  years  before,  came  to  care  for  him, 
and  from  that  time  on  until  November  19th,  she  gave 
him  the  most  devoted  care  that  a  loving  trained  heart 
could  bestow.  I  pay  a  tender  tribute  to  Sara  M.  Dick, 
as  I  am  sure  he  would,  for  her  unselfish  devotion,  and 
as  she  has  since  passed  on,  I  am  sure  he  was  glad  to 
welcome  her  to  the  home  of  which  they  often  talked. 

On  January  2,  1914,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  he  wrote: 

In  spite  of  my  being  sick,  I  was  able  to  sit  up  and  not  make 
myself  a  damper  on  the  day  (New  Year's  Day)  and  if  I  was 
miserable  I  kept  my  misery  to  myself.  We  had  a  delightful 
Christmas  and  a  delightful  New  Year. 

371 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

He  saw  clearly  the  approach  of  the  end  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year,  for  the  entry  of  January  1st 
reads: 

With  mingling  hope  and  trust  and  fear 
I  bid  thee  welcome  untried  year, 
The  paths  before  me  pause  to  view — 
Which  shall  I  shun  and  which  pursue? 
I  make  no  choice  of  left  or  right, 
But  walk  straight  forward  in  God's  might, 
So  grant  me  grace  my  course  to  run, 
This  is  my  prayer— "Thy  will  be  done." 

The  thought  and  conviction  of  heart  and  mind  is  that  this 
year  will  end  for  me  in  one  of  the  early  Spring  days.  Some 
time  in  April  or  May,  and  that  seems  a  long  time  ahead,  I 
expect  to  close  my  pilgrimage.  I  am  content.  Had  I  chosen 
I  had  lived  on  to  one  more  birthday,  but  God's  way  is  best, 
and  I  accept  it  with  good  cheer  and  good  content.  The  year 
is  done  under  cloudy  skies,  but  the  heart  is  full  of  unchanging 
sunshine.  Day  by  day  I  will  do  my  work  and  set  my  house 
in  order,  and  any  day  He  calls,  "whether  at  even  or  at  mid 
night  or  at  cock-crowing,  or  in  the  morning,"  I  will  be  ready. 

Pain  and  its  accompanying  nervousness  kept  from 
him  the  sleep  that  meant  refreshment  and  restoration, 
and  of  the  efforts  to  induce  slumber  on  the  part  of  his 
physicians  and  nurses,  he  says  on  January  3d: 

No  one  else  can  give  sleep.  It  is  the  gift  of  God  anyhow. 
Weariness  will  not  woo  it.  It  may  sometimes  only  frighten  it. 
Drugs  only  bring  on  a  ghastly  imitation  of  it.  Often  a  danger 
ous  imitation.  There  is  not  a  sleeping  mixture  in  all  the 
pharmacopeia  that  is  not  a  dangerous  poison.  Only  the  sleep 
that  God  gives  to  "His  Beloved"  is  healthful  and  refreshing. 
Give  me  that  sleep  tonight,  dear  Lord. 

But  with  all  of  his  pain  and  suffering  he  kept  the 
sweetness  and  resignation  that  had  marked  him  through 
his  life.  On  January  5th  he  writes: 

372 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

I  realize  in  these  sleepless  nights,  racked  with  pain,  how 
much  I  need  this  "Passive  phase"  of  existence — this  God- 
given  condition  of  mere  receptivity.  Well,  I  am  tired.  I  will 
lie  down  at  any  rate  and  pray  for  the  great  blessing  of  sleep. 
The  four  things  which  are  not  in  Thy  treasury,  I  lay  before 
Thee  Lord,  with  this  petition — my  nothingness,  my  wants,  my 
sins  and  my  contrition. 

Half-seriously  and  half-humorously  occasionally 
he  refers  to  his  condition,  and  always  he  was  able  to 
look  the  end  fairly  in  the  face  without  winking.  On 
January  7th  an  entry  in  his  diary  reads: 

Insomnia  worries  me  a  great  deal.  The  Doctor  issues  a 
solemn  warning — "go  slow" — the  fact  is,  if  I  go  any  slower 
I  will  stop  altogether,  and  I  think  that  is  what  I  am  doing, 
running  down.  I  am  "letting  the  old  cat  die",  and  it  seems  to 
be  a  mighty  tough  old  cat,  with  all  its  nine  lives  yet  intact. 
Death  seems  to  have  forgotten  me. 

And  there  is  a  flash  of  his  never-failing  fun  on  Jan 
uary  24th,  when  he  wrote: 

I  breakfasted  in  bed.  Then  they  took  away  the  tray  and 
I  lay  there  with  my  head  crookedly  propped  up  on  the  higher 
corner  of  a  pillow  set  drunkenly  on  one  end  corner-wise,  my 
chin  doubled  down  into  my  chest,  drifting  away  into  delicious 
sleep.  R.  came  along,  lifted  my  head,  took  away  the  extra 
crooked  pillow,  smoothed  down  the  remaining  one  most  com 
fortably,  drew  me  down  in  the  bed,  straightened  me  out,  tucked 
in  the  covers  and  said,  "There,  now  you  can  go  to  sleep",  and 
being  quite  wide  awake,  I  got  up  and  dressed.  I  am  getting 
tired  of  living  merely  as  a  breathing  machine. 

And  again  January  29th: 

The 's  called  in  the  afternoon.     Stanley  met  them  at 

the  door,  and  Heavens!  What  the  pagan  sputtered  at  them! 
We  did  not  learn  until  long  after  they  had  gone  that  they  had 
been  here.  In  addition  to  speaking  only  Japanese,  Stanley  is 
tongue-tied  and  stammers.  It  is  rather  difficult  to  translate 
it  into  English. 

373 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Whenever  it  was  possible,  however,  he  was  at  his 
desk,  seeking  to  the  last  to  grind  what  grist  was  in  the 
mill.  On  the  last  day  of  January  he  says: 

In  spite  of  several  invitations  to  drive  this  morning,  I 
remained  in  the  den  and  got  rid  of  some  work  that  has  been 
nagging  me  for  ten  days.  For  45  years  it  has  been  my  habit 
to  work  in  the  morning  and  recreate  in  the  afternoon,  and  I 
cannot  suddenly  change  the  habits  of  a  life  time,  so  the  morning 
sees  me  chained  to  the  laboring  oar  at  the  desk,  and  so  it  will 
be  until  the  oar  is  broken. 

The  Sabbath,  which  through  all  of  his  life  he  had 
consecrated  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  week,  gave  him 
joy.  There  is  an  entry  February  1st: 

Such  a  beautiful  day  it  has  been,  sunny,  soft,  balmy,  fra 
grant  with  woodsy  odors— a  very  Sabbath  of  God  indeed. 

The  day  is  ended  ere  I  sink  to  sleep 

My  weary  spirit  seeks  repose  in  Thine, 

Father  forgive  my  trespasses  and  keep 

This  little  life  of  mine 

At  peace  with  all  the  world,  dear  Lord,  and  Thee. 

No  fear  my  soul's  unwavering  faith  can  shake, 

All's  well — whichever  side  the  grave  for  me 

The  morning  light  may  break. 

And  his  eagerness  to  finish  what  work  was  still 
before  him  is  reflected  in  his  diary  for  February  2d, 
when  he  says: 

I  felt  a  great  deal  better  this  morning.  Worked  on  the 
war  book  all  morning,  but  I  could  not  work  fast,  and  had  to 
pause  many  times  for  rest.  If  I  could  just  have  one  long, 
exultant,  vigorous  day,  even  of  a  year  ago. 

The  "war  book"  referred  to  was  his  last  sustained 
literary  work,  which  was  the  preparation  of  his  volume 
of  "Drums  of  the  47th",  a  series  of  chapters  published 
originally  in  the  Sunday  School  Times,  dealing  with 
374 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

incidents  and  events  of  his  service  as  a  soldier  in  the 
Civil  War. 

The  book,  "Drums  of  the  47th,"  was  issued  in 
November,  1914,  only  a  few  days  before  his  death, 
when  he  was  so  ill  he  could  only  see  the  outlines  of  the 
illustration  on  the  paper  cover  of  the  book.  He  com 
mented  on  it  in  detail,  and  closing  his  eyes,  said,  "  Violet, 
this  is  my  last  gift  to  you".  But  it  was  not  until  after 
he  had  passed,  I  found  put  away  in  a  place  where  he 
knew  I  would  discover  it,  a  copy  of  his  poems,  "The 
Silver  Trumpets",  in  which  he  had  pasted  on  one  fly 
leaf  my  favorite  photograph  of  himself,  and  had  illus 
trated  each  poem  by  some  print  or  kodak  picture  which 
he  had  carefully  selected,  knowing  that  this  was  to  bear 
a  special  message  to  me  after  he  had  gone.  The  book 
was  carefully  tied  between  two  pieces  of  paste  board, 
bound  with  a  white  ribbon,  and  inscribed  "Violet's 
Trumpets".  Pasted  on  the  leaf  opposite  his  photo 
graph  was  an  appreciation,  which  will  ever  live  in  my 
heart,  as  I  am  sure  he  hoped  it  would.  This  was  written 
in  a  firm,  clear  hand,  showing  that  the  thought  of  this 
book  had  come  to  him  and  been  carried  out  while  he 
was  yet  strong  and  well,  for  the  lover  heart  of  him  was 
still  strong  in  the  desire  that  though  he  had  gone  from 
me,  his  message  would  surprisingly  comfort  me: 

TO  THE 
DEAREST  AND  SWEETEST  AND  BEST 

"  His  Banner  Over  Me  is  Love." 

Pure  as  the  Lily-bell — whiter  than  snow; 
Heart  of  a  red  Rose  in  the  Morning  Glow; 
Flame  of  the  Opal,  Splendor  of  the  Noon, 
At  Sunset  sweeter  than  a  Dream  of  June 
In  Twilight  soft  as  breast  of  brooding  Dove 
The  Bridal  shadings  of  a  Perfect  Love. 

375 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

All  Night  a  silvery  Oriflamme  of  Stars, 
Waving  at  dewy  Morning's  golden  bars. 
In  all  its  jewelled  changes — Love  the  same — 
Glory  of  Sun  and  Sable — Rose  and  Flame. 
We  twain  have  walked  along  our  Pilgrim  Way 
Neath  skies  of  sheen  and  shadow — gold  and  gray; 
Heart-locked  to  loving  Heart — Hand-fast  in  Hand, 
Through  Life  Paths  Love-lit  to  a  Love-crowned  Land. 
Clouds  and  the  Sun-gleams  blessings  from  above — 
Always  "His  Banner  Over  Us  is  Love". 

Another  reflection  of  the  spirit  of  the  Sabbath  is  in 
the  entry  for  Sunday,  February  15th: 

All  days  are  much  alike  to  a  sick,  weak,  almost  good  for 
nothing  old  man,  yet  Sunday  is  Sunday.  It  has  the  Sabbath 
atmosphere,  the  day  of  rest.  It  is  God's  own  day,  therefore 
man's  best  and  pleasantest  day.  A  day  for  quiet  communion 
with  our  dear  Heavenly  Father  and  our  loving  Elder  Brother. 
So  little  time  those  busy  week-day  lives  leave  for  them.  The 
day  has  been  wondrously  pleasant.  My  talk  with  Roy, 
especially  the  part  of  it  on  religious  and  spiritual  matters,  was 
especially  gratifying  to  me. 

And  on  the  17th  he  wrote: 

A  pleasant  day.  Closing  in  pleasantly.  A  day  in  which 
happiness  found  us  without  putting  us  to  the  trouble  of  looking 
for  her. 

And  his  familiarity  with  the  scenes  of  first  Christian 
ity,  and  his  delight  in  weaving  his  knowledge  into 
comparisons,  is  shown  on  February  18th,  when  this 
entry  appears: 

Hard  rain  all  day  and  night.  These  are  the  "latter  rains". 
In  old  Palestine,  the  land  of  promise,  fall  the  "early  rains"  in 
October  and  November,  quickening  the  seed  sown,  preparing 
the  summer  baked  ground  for  the  fall  plowing.  Then  come 
the  "winter  rains"  in  November  and  December,  stimulating 
the  growth  and  life  of  the  growing  harvests,  and  then  the 
"latter  rains"  in  March  and  April,  refreshing  the  maturing 
376 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

harvests,  and  renewing  life  and  renewed  strength  to  them,  and 
this  is  exactly  the  function  of  our  California  rains  in  their 
divinely  appointed  season. 

And  when  the  storm  was  over,  February  22d,  he  made 
this  note: 

Last  evening's  rainbow  was  a  true  and  hopeful  prophet 
and  this  morning  a  cloudless  sky  greeted  the  clear  sunrise  with 
joy  and  laughter.  This  land  of  California  can  cry  harder,  stop 
more  quickly,  and  laugh  more  happily  and  whole-heartedly 
than  any  other  country  under  the  sun. 

Occasionally  his  physical  condition  was  improved, 
and  there  was  a  revival  of  the  old  spirit,  for  on  February 
25th  he  wrote: 

Lent  begins  joyously  and  beautifully.  A  lovely  day  in  the 
heavens,  on  the  mountains  and  hills,  meadows  and  gardens, 
and  on  the  ocean.  Everybody  happy,  and  I  go  to  the  den  to 
begin  hard  work  on  my  Easter  book,  and  I  feel  just  like  it. 

Latter  February  found  him  again  at  Eventide.  On 
the  26th  there  is  this  entry: 

Left  Sunnycrest  at  9.15,  running  right  through  Los  Angeles 
without  stopping,  and  in  a  sunny  run  of  one  hour  and  forty- 
five  minutes,  anchored  at  Eventide.  A  little  restlessness  wor 
ried  my  sleep  till  midnight,  after  that  sweet  sleep  and  beautiful 
night. 

And  the  following  day: 

Violet  and  the  nurse  were  busy  about  the  house  all  morning, 
unpacking,  cleaning,  dusting,  cooking.  It  is  not  very  much 
rest  for  them,  even  though  it  is  considerable  change.  It  is 
the  way  of  womankind  to  make  sacrifices  for  some  one  else, 
usually  a  sick,  or  oftener  a  lazy  man,  who  selfishly  accepts  their 
sacrifices.  Worked  all  morning  and  finished  the  Easter  book, 
"Alpha  and  Omega"  for  the  hands  of  the  printer  by  noon. 
The  task  had  to  be  done  by  hand  and  pen,  and  left  me  very 
much  exhausted. 

377 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

As  was  ever  the  case,  the  change  to  the  sea  lifted  up 
his  spirit.  February  28th  he  wrote: 

Had  a  little  nap  before  supper.  Violet  read  to  me  before 
the  driftwood  fire  in  the  drawing  room,  and  I  went  to  bed  for 
a  good  long  night's  sleep  at  8.30,  and  I  got  what  I  went  for. 
Thanks  to  good  careful  nursing  and  the  loving  care  of  my  dear 
wife,  I  am  better,  lots  better,  stronger,  almost  no  pain,  better 
stomach,  better  every  way,  and  still  growing  better.  Hurrah! 

His  sense  of  humor  was  still  keen,  and  he  makes 
this  note  concerning  the  departure  of  an  employee  from 
Sunnycrest  on  March  7th: 

Gardener  leaves  us  today.  When  he  came  here  18  months 
ago  he  was  a  sheep  herder  who  did  not  know  how  to  fasten  a 
hose  to  a  faucet,  and  could  only  tell  a  garden  from  a  chapparal 
ranch  by  the  fencing.  Now  he  is  a  professional  "gardener" 
and  goes  forth  to  spoil  some  man's  grounds  at  expert's  wages. 

There  are  also  many  of  the  philosophical  reflections 
that  marked  all  of  his  work,  tempered  and  mellowed 
with  the  added  years.  On  March  24th  he  writes: 

There  is  no  property  on  earth  more  precious  than  castles  in 
the  air.  They  are  so  cheap  and  easy  to  build.  Your  own  good 
thoughts,  pleasant  thoughts,  kind  thoughts,  sweet  and  pure, 
are  the  only  materials.  You  may  build  where  you  will  and  as 
high  as  you  please  and  grandly  as  you  please.  The  expense  is 
all  in  the  up-keep.  A  moment  of  hate  lays  them  in  ruins.  A 
burst  of  passion  lays  low  the  proudest  Chateau  d'Espagne.  A 
mean  thought,  an  hour  of  jealousy,  of  selfishness,  destroys  the 
pleasant  palace  of  a  beautiful  day  dream.  Every  day  the 
castle  must  be  strengthened,  repaired,  beautified.  That  takes 
work,  care,  watchfulness.  So  long  as  the  castle  stands,  it  is 
real  as  Gibraltar. 

Much  he  enjoyed  the  occasional  visits  from  his  old 
friends  when  his  strength  was  sufficient  to  permit  them. 
He  makes  this  note  on  April  2d,  referring  to  the  late 
Senator  George  F.  Edmunds  of  Vermont: 
378 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

Senator  Edmunds  called.  He  brought  for  me  a  book  long 
out  of  print,  "Yu-pe-ya's  Lute",  a  translation  of  a  Chinese 
poem.  He  read  a  few  pages  to  me,  in  that  singularly  rich  voice, 
the  old  sympathetic  voice  that  was  heard  in  the  United  States 
Senate  in  1866.  He  was  born  February  1,  1828,  now  86  years 
old,  with  yet  a  keen,  living  interest  in  contemporary  life. 

His  interest  in  public  affairs,  notwithstanding  his 
impaired  hleath,  did  not  abate,  and  his  comments  were 
seasoned  with  his  usual  humor.  On  April  3d  his  diary 
shows  this  entry: 

Morning  dawns  with  news  from  Mexico  that  may  be 
believed  until  the  evening  papers  published  at  11  A.  M.  contra 
dict  it.  Villa,  the  brigand,  has  captured  Torreon.  He  says  so 
himself,  but  he  is  such  a  liar  he  may  have  been  killed  a  week  ago. 

After  a  well-meant  call  from  one  who  was  not  by 
nature  gifted  to  give  comfort  or  inspiration,  he  observes: 

A  well  filled  mind  is  better  than  a  well  stored  library.  Its 
information  is  ready  for  use  at  a  thought.  It  is  more  than  a 
reservoir.  It  is  a  living  fountain.  A  renewing  spring.  What 
you  remember  is  the  only  valuable  part  of  what  you  read. 
I  have  read  through  thousands  of  books.  I  retain  only  scores. 
The  emptier  the  mind,  the  leakier,  the  less  a  man  knows,  the 
harder  he  is  to  entertain.  The  well  filled  mind  is  company  for 
itself.  The  empty  one,  like  a  baby's,  has  to  be  amused  with 
tiresome  nothings. 

His  patience  and  fortitude  under  all  trials  were 
unswerving,  and  he  determined  ever  to  meet  the  days 
with  courage.  On  March  26th  he  says: 

What  I  am  going  to  see  today  will  depend  less  upon  what 
I  look  at  than  upon  the  eyes  I  see  with,  and  the  eyes  are  windows 
colored  by  my  heart,  my  thoughts,  my  cloudy  passions. 

Easter  Sunday,  April  12th,  was  observed  as  his 
diary  indicates: 

I  was  not  very  well  this  morning,  suffering  from  a  keen 
touch  of  indigestion,  but  I  lay  down  on  one  of  the  West  porch 

379 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

cots,  adjusted  the  telephone  and  listened  to  the  morning  service 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  hearing  Pastor  Freeman's  sermon 
quite  well.  I  got  much  better  toward  noon,  and  went  to  bed 
at  9  o'clock  "feelin'  fine". 

To  his  son,  on  March  15th,  he  wrote: 

Two  paragraphs  in  a  Salt  Lake  City  letter  of  recent  date 
pleased  me  and  interested  me  immensely,  running  as  they  did 
along  the  line  of  my  thoughts  and  my  prayers.  One  of  these 
was  to  the  effect  that  you  were  going  to  lecture  at  Bethel  Church 
on  "A  Reporter's  Spiel",  and  the  other  still  more,  that  you 
were  going  to  preach  for  Reverend  W.  B.  Stewart  in  Bethel 
Church.  I  know  you  have  this  power  of  expression  and  I  am 
so  glad  that  you  are  going  to  demonstrate  it. 

Enrich  your  vocabulary.  Diversify  your  expression.  Say 
things  in  the  manner  that  will  make  old. things  sound  new. 
Remember  that  hundreds  and  thousands  of  preachers  have 
been  preaching  from  the  texts  you  will  have  to  select  for  nearly 
two  thousand  years  past.  But  they  haven't  used  your  words; 
nor  your  arrangement  of  phrases,  nor  your  statement  of  ideas. 
These  things  you  can  make  your  own.  God  give  you  grace 
and  tact  and  strength,  my  son. 

Following  a  more  serious  recurrence  of  his  illness, 
there  is  a  penciled  notation  on  Thursday,  May  7th: 

"Fergit  what  did."  An  empty  day.  Tonight  closes  24 
hours  of  oblivion.  I  don't  remember  what  has  happened  today. 
I  am  writing  this  page  tomorrow  and  trying  to  remember 
whether  or  no  I  was  alive  tomorrow  or  rather  yesterday.  If  I 
was  I  don't  remember  anything  about  it,  save  the  headache 
with  which  I  awoke,  and  which  continued  with  me  all  day. 

On  the  following  Sunday  he  expresses  again  a  belief 
which  he  stated  frequently  in  his  work: 

"Mother  Day"  in  all  the  churches  except  a  very  few  where 
the  preachers  had  other  topics  apparently  more  important. 
With  these  I  sympathize.  The  flattest  failures  I  ever  made  in 
the  pulpit  or  on  the  rostrum  were  when  I  spoke  on  a  topic 
supplied  by  some  one  else.  I  not  only  love  to  sharpen  my  own 
380 


THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

sword,  to  make  the  prayer  before  the  sermon,  but  I  want  to 
make  the  whole  sermon  or  speech.  One  man  may  be  blazing 
with  enthusiasm  over  a  subject  that  is  a  perfect  fire  extinguisher 
for  me. 

Amelioration  of  his  acute  condition  made  it  possible 
for  him  to  return  to  his  beloved  task  of  supervising  the 
setting  out  of  new  shrubs  and  flowers,  and  he  makes 
this  comment  on  May  14th: 

"The  breath  of  flowers  is  sweeter  in  the  air  than  in  the  hand", 
and  what  a  fragrant  country  this  is.  Odor  of  orange  blossoms 
and  fruit,  carnations  and  roses  by  thousands,  and  violets, 
blessing  the  air,  with  fragrant  shrubs,  rare  blossoms  and  the 
common  old-fashioned  flowers — "sweet  letters  of  the  angel  tone 
whose  messages  whisper  themselves  in  one's  very  dreams". 

Early  June  found  him  better  both  in  mind  and  body. 
June  5th  he  notes  that  he  was  "feelin'  fine".  Because 
of  his  improved  condition  and  at  his  solicitation,  I  kept 
a  long  standing  engagement  in  the  East,  being  absent 
about  two  weeks.  For  his  comfort  and  entertainment 
I  had  a  new  motor  car  delivered  to  him,  the  morning  of 
my  leaving — which  like  a  new  toy  absorbed  his  atten 
tion  and  lessened  the  loneliness. 

He  found  comfort  in  a  poem  sent  him  by  Fanny 
Crosby — "a  little  hymn  of  joy  and  consolation": 

Oh,  child  of  God  wait  patiently, 

Tho  dark  thy  way  may  be, 
And  let  thy  faith  lean  tenderly 

On  Him  who  cares  for  thee. 
And  tho  the  clouds  hang  dimly 

Above  the  arch  of  night 
Yet  in  the  morning  joy  will  come 

And  fill  thy  soul  with  light. 

On  June  8th  he  wrote: 

It  is  pretty  lonesome  in  the  house  with  the  "Mistress  of 
the  Manse  "  away.  Now  that  sunny  weather  is  here  I  am  going 

381 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

down  to  Eventide  for  a  day  or  two  to  while  away  a  little  of  the 
loneliness.  I  am  on  the  upgrade  this  week,  and  the  outing  will 
be  good  for  me.  Ma'ma  will  be  away  about  three  weeks,  I 
reckon.  She  has  been  shut  up  with  an  invalid  for  a  long  time, 
and  I  was  very  insistent  on  her  going  away.  It  will  be  good 
for  her  to  get  out  among  women  interested  in  the  aifairs  that 
interest  her. 

This  entry  for  June  19th  is  characteristic: 

Miss  Dick  and  I  decided  it  would  be  a  nice  thing  to  take 
some  photographs  of  pretty  little  nooks  in  the  garden  and 
illuminate  Violet's  letters  with  them,  so  we  set  out  to  find  her 
camera,  and  found  it  on  the  way  from  Chicago  to  Ithaca.  She 
took  it  with  her. 

In  mid-July  his  illness  returned  in  a  more  acute 
stage,  as  indicated  by  his  entry  of  July  13th: 

My  mind  was  at  peace  and  composed  for  sleep,  but  my 
breath  was  somewhat  stertorous  and  broken,  very  much  like 
the  breath  of  age.  However,  merely  to  breathe  freely  does  not 
mean  to  live.  I  do  not  like  these  ovor-frequent  stoppages  of 
breath.  It  is  at  the  least  confusing.  Ah,  well,  the  end  cannot 
be  far  away.  I  will  be  ready,  come  when  and  how  and  where 
it  may.  Strange  that  men  are  not  always  ready  for  it. 

And  again  on  July  16th: 

"We,"  which  includes  the  entire  household,  packed  "my" 
trunk,  a  job  occupying  about  two  hours,  and  bringing  to  light 
a  great  many  things  I  never  knew  I  had.  We  are  getting  ready 
to  live  at  the  dear  old  home  of  Eventide  for  three  months  until 
October,  and  my  70th  birthday  will  fall  in  14  days,  and  "the 
days  of  our  years  are  three  score  years  and  ten,  and  if  by  reason 
of  strength  they  be  four  score  years,  yet  is  their  strength 
labor  and  sorrow  for  it  is  soon  cut  off  and  we  fly  away".  I  do 
not  know.  Do  I  care?  With  every  fibre  of  my  heart  do  I  weep 
for  the  loved  ones  who  will  weep  for  me.1*  Of  all,  the  most  for 
my  darling  wife,  my  Violet,  but  for  myself,  not  a  regret,  much 
less  a  fear,  not  a  shadow  of  dread.  "I  have  fought  the  good 
fight.  I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith." 
382 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

Through  all  the  years  of  his  writing,  lecturing  and 
preaching,  he  had  indicated  his  unshaken  belief  that  a 
man  should  live  to  the  Biblical  three  score  and  ten 
years,  and  the  firmness  of  that  belief  without  question 
sustained  him  in  the  struggle  for  a  life  that  should 
round  out  the  headlands  of  seventy.  In  his  diary  for 
Thursday,  July  30,  1914,  he  headlined  the  page  with 
"Three  score  and  ten"  with  bold  letters  in  red  ink. 
His  physical  condition,  which  he  was  accustomed  to 
indicate  by  a  brief  word  on  each  page  of  his  diary,  he 
notes  as  "Good",  and  there  is  a  quotation  from  Long 
fellow  at  the  top  of  the  page: 

The  holiest  of  all  holidays  are  those 
Kept  by  ourselves  in  silence  and  apart, 
The  secret  anniversaries  of  the  heart. 

The  birthday  list  of  messages,  including  letters 
from  perhaps  every  state  in  the  United  States,  from 
Canada,  and  cablegrams  from  Europe,  were  delightful 
to  him,  as  indicating  the  love  and  friendship  of  the 
thousands  to  whom  and  for  whom  he  had  preached, 
lectured  and  written  through  a  period  of  more  than 
forty  years.  He  spent  part  of  the  day  at  "Eventide", 
the  summer  home  at  Redondo  Beach,  on  the  shores  of 
the  Pacific,  of  which  he  said  in  his  "Little  Philosophy 
of  Life": 

Afternoon  land  is  very  pleasant  in  spite  of  broken  health 
and  increasing  weakness.  Every  evening  I  sit  in  the  sun-room 
and  watch  the  sun  creep  down  the  western  wall  of  the  sky, 
sinking  to  its  rest  beyond  the  farther  rim  of  the  blue  Pacific. 
I  know  what  is  over  there,  because  I  have  journeyed  in  those 
lands,  and  can  follow  the  sun  as  he  fades  out  of  sight  and  begins 
to  illumine  the  Orient.  There,  just  where  he  drops  below  the 
waves,  rise  the  green  shores  of  picturesque  Japan.  Yokohama, 
Tokyo,  Nikko,  snow-crowned  Fujiyama,  the  beautiful  Inland 

383 


ROBERT  j.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

Sea — I  can  see  them  all.  There  where  that  silver  star  is  shining 
through  the  crimson  bars  of  the  clouds,  is  China.  Over  there, 
where  the  clouds  are  white  as  snow  banks — there  is  Manila. 
Yonder,  where  the  black  cloud  is  tipped  with  flame,  is  Port 
Arthur.  I  know  them  all.  I  have  been  there. 

Well,  beyond  the  gates  of  the  sunset,  farther  away  than  the 
stars,  away  past  the  bars  of  the  night,  there  is  another  land.  I 
have  never  seen  it.  I  have  never  seen  anyone  who  has  been 
there.  But  all  that  I  know  about  the  oriental  lands  in  which 
I  have  journeyed  is  mere  conjecture  with  my  positive  belief 
in  that  Blessed  Land  which  eye  hath  not  seen.  That  Fair  and 
Happy  Country  I  do  know.  Know  it  with  a  sublime  assurance 
which  is  never  shadowed  by  a  cloud  of  passing  doubt.  I  may 
become  confused  in  my  terrestrial  geography.  But  this  Heaven 
of  ours — no  man,  no  circumstance,  can  ever  shake  my  faith 
in  that. 

As  the  sun  sinks  lower  and  the  skies  grow  darker  in  the 
deepening  twilight,  the  star  of  Faith  shines  more  brightly  and 
Hope  sings  more  clearly  and  sweetly.  Every  evening,  when  the 
sun  goes  down,  I  can  see  that  land  of  Eternal  Morning.  I  know 
it  is  there,  not  because  I  have  seen  it,  but  because  I  do  see  it. 
The  Shadowless  Land,  "where  we  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither 
thirst  any  more;  where  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither 
sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain;  where 
God  shall  dwell  with  men,  and  they  shall  be  His  people,  and  He 
shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes". 

His  last  published  expression  to  the  great  number 
of  his  readers  was  a  letter  written  for  the  Los  Angeles 
Times,  to  be  published  upon  his  70th  birthday,  and 
in  that  he  sums  up  his  experiences  of  the  past,  his 
impressions  and  the  realization  of  his  dream  of  seventy, 
and  his  faith  for  the  future,  in  these  words: 

The  days  of  our  years  are  three  score  years  and  ten. 

'When  I  was  a  little  boy  I  heard  Dr.  Henry  G.  Weston, 
then  pastor  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  of  Peoria,  111.,  preach 
a  sermon  from  that  passage  in  the  ninetieth  Psalm.  And 
when  I  was  a  big  boy — as  big  as  I  ever  grew  to  be — I  heard 
384 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  preach  from  the  same  text.  These  two 
sermons  by  two  great  preachers  burned  into  the  very  soul  of  me. 
There  was  nothing  terrifying  about  them.  They  were  gentle; 
mighty  in  their  reassuring  quality.  They  made  the  life  that 
now  is  a  certain  thing  to  me.  Whatever  other  problems  might 
remain  to  be  insoluble  mysteries  the  minimum  duration  of  life 
was  to  me  a  fixed  fact.  I  might,  by  the  loving  wisdom  of  the 
Creator,  live  to  be  a  very  old  man.  But  if  I  lived  anywhere 
near  right,  die  before  seventy  I  would  not. 

I  believed  in  that  measure  of  life  with  a  boy's  unquestioning 
belief  in  the  Book.  It  never  left  me,  and  it  has  not  failed  me. 
I  never  questioned  it,  and  I  have  all  my  life  been  an  old- 
fashioned  believer  in  the  Bible. 

This  question  of  the  uncertainty  of  life  is  one  that  naturally 
enough  has  often  come  up.  I  have  never  had  but  one  argu 
ment,  which  I  paraphrased  from  the  disciple  Philip,  "Watch 
me  and  see".  I  said  it  positively  at  least  more  than  fifty 
years  ago.  I  have  said  it  at  frequent  intervals  since.  And  I 
am  going  out  of  this  month  July,  having  leaned  on  that  assur 
ance  "three  score  years  and  ten".  I  am  not  at  all  surprised. 
I  am  grateful;  lovingly,  happily,  joyously  grateful.  But  I 
always  knew  it. 

I  have  been  afraid  in  the  face  of  threatening  peril  many 
and  many  a  time.  I  have  felt  the  human  fear  of  death,  often 
enough,  even  when  I  was  confident  I  would  not  die.  I  have 
often  enough  been  frightened  by  the  fear  of  harm — I  know  the 
extreme  dread  of  physical  pain.  I  was  a  soldier  for  three  years. 
I  have  fought  through  a  score  of  battles.  I  never  went  into 
one  of  them  without  feeling  my  heart  sink  at  the  fear  of  a  wound. 

But  I  never  prayed  that  I  might  be  kept  from  death.  I 
was  too  young  to  die.  I  knew  that.  But  to  be  hurt  with  the 
cruelty  of  war!  To  writhe  under  some  mangling  wound;  to 
suffer  all  night  long  writhing  in  a  pelting  storm,  under  the 
throbbing  lunge  of  bayonet  or  the  fierce  shock  of  shot  or  shell — 
this  filled  me  with  fainting  terror. 

How  does  it  feel  to  reach  the  official  limit  of  life?  Well 
there  is  no  shock.  You  knew  all  the  time  it  was  coming.  You 
come  to  harbor  expectantly,  don't  you?  As  Frederick  the  Great 
said  to  his  Grenadiers,  recoiling  for  the  third  time  before  the 
flaming  thunder  of  the  Austrian  guns — "What,  then,  do  you 
25  385 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

want  to  live  forever?'*  No  matter  how  smooth  and  beautiful 
the  sea,  no  matter  how  pleasant  the  ship,  you  want  to  get  to 
port  some  time;  you  want  to  get  home  some  day;  you  don't 
want  to  sail  round  and  round  forever.  There  is  a  better  world 
than  this;  a  fairer  one;  lovelier  skies  and  sweeter  fields.  This 
world  isn't  a  treadmill.  It's  a  country  through  which  you  are 
journeying.  The  way  of  your  pilgrimage  leads  somewhere. 
Don't  you  want  to  get  to  where  you're  going?  Or  are  you  like 
Booker  Washington's  old  colored  woman — "  Where  you  going, 
auntie?"  "Law  bless  you,  honey,  I'se  done  bin  whah  I'm 
gwine." 

One  very  impressive  feeling  comes  to  you  on  the  morning 
of  your  seventieth  birthday.  If  you  believe  as  I  do,  this  is 
your  last  birthday  anniversary.  No  more  birthdays.  Why, 
if  you  look  at  it  through  my  spectacles,  you're  through  with 
time.  This  is  the  beginning  of  eternity. 

Some  men  passing  on  from  this  point  say,  "  Now  I  am  living 
on  borrowed  time."  Not  much  you  are  not.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  borrowed  time.  It's  the  freest  gift  in  the  universe. 
I  may  live  for  five  years  yet;  or  ten.  If  I  do  it  will  be  on  the 
same  kind  of  time  as  composed  the  seventy  years  I  have  lived 
already,  not  one  of  which  was  borrowed.  If  you  borrow  any 
thing  you  expect  to  repay  it.  Well,  you  can't  pay  back  any 
time.  If  I  went  to  the  only  One  who  can  give  me  time,  I'd  as 
soon  ask  for  a  thousand  years — it's  only  a  watch  in  the  night 
to  Him — as  for  a  day.  I  could  repay  the  one  as  easily  as  I 
can  the  other.  "  Lord,  let  me  have  a  couple  of  thousand  years?  " 
"Surely,  man;  when  will  you  give  them  back?" 

No,  I  don't  "feel  just  as  young  as  I  used  to  be".  Not  so 
young,  even,  as  I  felt  ten  years  ago;  I  have  met  men  who  felt 
at  seventy  just  as  they  did  at  twenty-five.  They  have  told  me 
so  themselves.  But  the  Lord  only  knows  how  they  felt  at 
twenty-five.  I  don't  feel  nearly  so  well  as  I  did  at  sixty.  But 
I  have  an  idea  that  maybe  I'll  pick  up  a  little  in  the  "velvet" 
time  that  may  be  coming  to  me. 

One  thing  I  do  know  where  I  have  the  advantage  over  the 
youth  of  twenty-five.  I  can  go  into  heaven  now  without  any  mis 
givings.  I  won't  stop  and  apologize,  and  explain  how  I  happen  to 
come  along  ten  or  fifteen  years  ahead  of  my  appointed  time.  I 
have  lived  out  my  "three  score  years  and  ten".  I  have  been 
386 


THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

trusted  on  the  earth  the  fullness  of  my  allotted  time.  As  for  the 
velvet  days  that  may  be  given — well,  Moses  says  all  the  rest  of 
it,  the  very  "pride"  of  it,  is  only  "labor  and  sorrow".  And  he 
ought  to  know;  he  tried  it  for  fifty  years  longer. 

For  the  matter  of  those  human  burdens,  they  may  yet  be 
given  to  me.  Very  little  have  I  known  of  them  in  my  allotted 
"three  score  and  ten".  Good  years  have  they  been  to  me.  So 
little  sickness  has  there  been  in  them,  and  so  little  pain,  and  all 
the  pain  and  sickness  were  sent  along  in  the  years  of  the  later 
time,  in  which  I  had  grown  used  to  living,  and  accustomed  to 
the  sudden  surprises  of  life,  and  had  plenty  of  time  for  sickness. 

I  have  had  so  few  disappointments  they  have  hardly  been 
worth  entering  on  the  books,  and  the  great  majority  have  been 
through  my  own  fault,  as  indeed  have  been  about  all  my 
troubles.  Very  few  of  them  can  I  charge  up  against  the  dear 
Lord.  In  fact,  the  worst  I  have  gotten  into,  He  has  done  His 
best  to  keep  me  out  of,  and  I  have  worked  my  way  into  them 
in  spite  of  Him.  And  I  have  never  known  Him  to  hesitate  to 
help  me  out  of  them.  And  it  seems  to  me  I  rarely,  if  ever,  had 
to  cry  to  Him  for  help.  All  I  had  to  do  was  to  let  Him  help 
me — just  to  keep  my  hands  off  and  let  Him  do  for  me. 

I  have  lived  with  this  world  now  for  seventy  years,  in  it 
and  on  it  and  for  it.  It  has  paid  me  fair  wages  and  has  insisted 
on  the  full  tale  of  brick  every  day.  It  has  never  overpaid  me, 
but  it  has  never  held  back  my  salary,  because  I  always  found 
out  in  time  to  call  a  strike  about  a  week  before  the  date  of  the 
lock-out.  It  has  been  a  good,  fair  world  to  live  in  with  both 
eyes  wide  open,  but  it  is  no  world  for  fools.  I  am  as  ready  to 
leave  it  as  I  was  to  come  into  it.  And  as  I  was  brought  into 
it  without  my  wishes  being  consulted,  I  will  expect  to  be  called 
out  of  it  just  as  summarily,  and  will  go  just  as  willingly  as  I 
came. 

The  letters  and  cards  that  came  to  him  were  read 
as  the  postman  brought  them,  and  his  eye  lighted  with 
many  a  smile,  dimmed  with  many  a  tear,  and  his  heart 
was  made  joyous  with  many  a  glad  recollection  as  they 
touched  some  chord  of  memory.  They  came  from  his 
old  friends  at  Peoria  and  Burlington,  from  his  birth* 

387 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

place  at  Greensboro,  from  the  old  homes  at  Ardmore 
and  Bryn  Mawr,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific, 
and  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  expressing  love  and 
friendship,  hope  and  cheer,  encouragement,  words  of 
recollected  inspiration  from  his  voice  and  pen,  a  ver 
itable  treasure  trove  of  stimulating  and  joyous  recol 
lection. 

It  was  a  beautiful  vision  he  had  backward  toward 
the  years  in  which  he  was  made  to  feel  his  work  had 
been  genuinely  joyous  and  helpful,  and  forward  to  the 
rewards  of  faith  and  trust  and  labor  of  which  he  felt  so 
sure.  His  whole  view  of  life  was  sweet,  tolerant  and 
kindly.  Of  California,  in  which  he  had  had  so  much 
of  honor,  happiness  and  joy,  he  said: 

It  is  where  it  rains  a  little  every  morning  when  you  want 
to  work,  and  the  sun  shines  all  afternoon  when  you  want  to 
play,  and  it  grows  dark  and  quiet  at  night. 

And  that  might  have  been  said  with  equal  truth  of 
the  years  of  his  life,  for  it  had  rained  in  his  life  much  of 
pathos;  there  had  been  much  sunshine  of  humor  and 
gladness,  and  he  saw  it  grow  dark  and  quiet  at  night 
with  a  splendid  faith  and  a  beautiful  trust  in  the  future 
beyond  the  sea. 

The  entry  in  his  diary  for  the  day  following, 
Friday,  July  31st,  was: 

Began  the  morning  after  with  a  jolly  breakfast,  then  a  quiet 
morning  with  myself  and  Violet  in  the  sun  room  and  Robin  at 
the  piano.  Such  a  lovely  morning  and  such  a  delightful  day. 
The  loveliest  drive  in  the  afternoon — down  to  San  Pedro  by  the 
coast  road.  Beautiful!  Home  by  the  inland  turnpike.  The 
birthday  and  "the  morning  after"  were  beautifully  auspicious, 
weather  and  physical  condition — full  of  promise  and  radiant 
hope.  And  oh,  the  joy  of  having  Robin  here!  It  brings  the 
old  days  back  again  just  to  hear  him  at  the  piano — just  to  talk 

388 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

with  him.  And  Violet's  tenderness  multiplies  itself  tenfold 
as  the  hours  go  by — so  thoughtful — sweet.  My  dear,  dear 
sweetheart  wife! 

The  world  well  tried,  the  sweetest  thing  in  life, 
Is  the  unclouded  welcome  of  a  wife. 

But  the  philosophical  contemplation  of  life  and  its 
burdens  to  which  he  had  schooled  himself,  is  reflected 
in  an  entry  in  his  diary  of  August  3rd: 

The  day  has  lived  itself.  One  day  at  a  time,  so  life  runs  on. 
Well  for  us  that  we  do  not  have  to  carryall  the  burden  of  seventy 
years  in  one  day  or  one  year.  Well  for  us  that  there  are  no 
long  stretches  in  the  march,  no  long  conflicts  in  the  battle  of 
life.  Life  comes  to  us  only  one  day  at  a  time.  Even  tomorrow 
is  not  ours  until  it  comes  as  today.  A  sweet  and  blessed  secret 
this  living  from  day  to  day.  God's  own  loving  hand  tenderly 
lets  down  the  soft  curtain  of  night  upon  the  close  of  each  day. 

He  became  unconscious  on  Tuesday,  August  4th, 
and  lingered  in  that  state  for  three  days.  On  Tuesday, 
August  18th,  he  wrote: 

After  it  was  over  and  past,  they  told  me,  long  days  after, 
that  this  day  was  the  crisis.  I  can  remember  nothing  about 
it  save  that  love  hovered  around  and  over  me  more  tenderly 
than  ever,  and  came  closer  to  me  as  the  world  seemed  to  drift 
farther  away. 

Our  principal  concern  then  was  to  restore  his 
strength  sufficiently  that  he  might  be  taken  back  to 
Sunnycrest. 

His  Philosophy  of  Life  is  summed  up  in  some  para 
graphs  from  the  little  book  bearing  that  name: 

Well,  I  have  always  loved  to  work.  It  has  been  pleasant 
in  the  old  mill,  with  its  rafters  bronzing  by  the  years,  its  shadowy 
corners,  its  far  views  from  the  dormers  up  in  the  loft,  the  myste 
rious  gurglings  and  murmurings  of  hidden  waters  down  deep 
among  the  foundations,  the  quiet  pond  and  the  earnest  rush 

389 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

of  the  race,  and  the  merry  laughter  of  the  "tail  race*'.  For  I 
ground  my  finest  flour  from  the  grist  the  people  brought  me. 
The  best  of  my  work  might  have  been  done  much  better;  the 
worst  of  it  had  better  been  left  undone;  all  of  it  has  been 
mediocre.  But  I  ground  the  grist  that  was  brought  me,  and 
took  only  fair  toll.  And  some  day,  in  a  better  mill,  with 
improved  machinery,  with  finer  material,  with  choicer  grist,  a 
steadier  power  and  a  better  light  I  will  do  better  work. 

A  good  father  and  a  good  mother — "  old-fashioned "? 
Well,  yes;  about  as  old-fashioned  as  fathers  and  mothers  have 
been  since  the  birth  of  Cain — taught  me  from  a  Good  Book 
that  the  way  of  life  and  the  plan  of  salvation  is  so  simple  and 
plain  that  not  even  the  philosophers  could  muddle  it — "  He  hath 
showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good,  and  what  doth  the  Lord 
require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  to  walk  humbly 
with  God."  That's  plain  enough  until  some  learned  man  begins 
to  explain  it.  If  that's  all  that  God  wants  of  me,  I  don't  care 
what  the  "Apostle's  Creed",  or  the  "Thirty-nine  Articles",  or 
the  " Confession  of  Faith"  demands  of  me.  But  that  seems 
to  include  about  everything.  And  yet  I  believe  in  creeds. 
How  can  a  man  live  without  a  standard? 

I  never  worry  about  the  Day  of  Judgment.  That  there 
will  be  one  I  am  positive.  That  it  will  be  as  dreadful  as  John 
of  Patmos  describes,  I  believe.  But  terrible  as  it  will  be  to 
have  all  one's  sins  uncovered  and  set  before  God  and  the  world, 
naked  and  in  the  light  of  day,  that  won't  be  one-half  so  terrible 
as  it  was  to  have  committed  them.  And  yet  that  we  rather 
enjoyed. 

And  another  most  dreadful  thing  about  the  Day  of  Judg 
ment  is  the  fact  that  somebody  knows  all  about  our  sins  now. 
There  never  was  a  "secret  sin"  since  the  serpent  invaded  Eden. 
There  have  been  at  least  three  living  eyewitnesses  to  every 
offense — the  sinner,  the  victim,  who  is  frequently  only  the  other 
sinner,  and  the  Judge  who  is  going  to  try  you  both.  The  best 
time  to  get  scared  about  the  Day  of  Judgment  is  about  ten 
minutes  before  you  make  a  fool  of  yourself. 

Life  has  been  to  me  a  pilgrimage  of  joy.  I've  never  had 
very  much  trouble,  and  what  I  have  had  has  been  of  my  own 
making  and  selection,  and  when  I  went  to  the  hospital  I  took 
my  medicine  without  making  faces  or  asking  for  "sympathy". 
390 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

I  was  ashamed  to.  Like  "Peter  and  the  Pain  Killer",  I  knew 
I  was  only  getting  what  I  had  asked  for.  But  up  one  hill  and 
down  the  other  the  pilgrimage  had  lain  through  pleasant 
places — good  roads,  safe  trails,  fine  pasturage,  sweet  water  and 
beautiful  camping  places.  A  few  giants,  mostly  wind-mills; 
millions  of  midgets  and  mosquitoes,  troublesome  but  not  fatal; 
occasionally  a  mean  man,  so  ashamed  of  himself  that  he  lied 
about  it;  now  and  then  a  liar;  once  in  a  while  a  hold-up  man, 
with  a  subscription  paper;  and  all  along  the  way  a  horde  of 
beggars. 

But  in  the  main  good  people;  kind-hearted,  generous 
people,  honest  people.  Lots  of  houses  built  close  "by  the 
side  of  the  road".  The  world  is  full  of  friendly  people  for 
friendly  men.  And  I'm  fond  of  people.  I  believe  in  them, 
I  love  them.  I  sympathize  with  them.  I  like  to  meet  them, 
and  to  walk  with  them,  and  to  have  them  about  me,  so  long  as 
they  can  stand  me. 

A  young  disciple  one  day  asked  me,  when  I  was  pastor  of 
the  Temple,  "Pastor,  how  can  I  learn  to  trust  God?  How 
can  I  acquire  faith?"  And  I  said,  "That  is  easy  and  simple. 
Just  lie  down  at  night  and  go  to  sleep.  You  are  helpless  and 
defenseless  as  a  dead  person.  You  do  not  see  the  storm  gather 
ing  above  your  home,  with  black  destruction  in  its  whirling 
wings.  You  cannot  see  the  tiny  tongue  of  flame  catching  at 
the  corner  of  the  room  in  which  you  sleep.  You  do  not  hear 
the  robber  stealthily  unfastening  the  fancied  security  of  lock 
and  bolt.  You  know  absolutely  nothing  of  the  score  of  evils 
that  may  be  threatening  your  peace  and  safety.  The  night 
may  be  ghastly  with  perils  all  about  you.  But  you  sleep 
sweetly,  safely,  and  you  awake  in  the  morning  refreshed  and 
strengthened.  Protecting  love  has  enfolded  you  like  a  gar 
ment.  And  you  believed  it  would  when  you  lay  down,  else 
you  never  could  have  gone  to  sleep.  Well,  that's  trust. 
That's  perfect  trust.  Just  hold  on  to  it  while  you  are  awake. 
Who  takes  care  of  you  while  you  sleep?  Not  father  and 
mother.  Not  the  servants.  Not  the  watchdog.  Nor  the 
policeman  a  mile  away.  'Except  the  Lord  keep  the  city,  the 
watchman  waketh  but  in  vain/  You  trust  in  God,  that's  all." 

Do  I  believe  in  laughter  as  much  as  ever  I  did?  A  great 
deal  more  than  ever  I  did,  even  in  the  days  that  were  ripples 

391 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

of  dimples  on  the  sunlit  eddies  of  a  river  of  laughter.  How 
could  life  be  best  lived  without  it — God's  exclusive  gift  to  his 
human  children?  Laughter  is  a  good  servant.  But  don't 
overwork  him  or  he  will  sulk,  and  maybe  strike  for  shorter 
hours.  Don't  smile  so  much  all  day  that  the  corners  of  your 
mouth  droop  with  weariness  when  you  come  home  at  night. 
"Always  leave  them  with  a  laugh"  is  the  axiom  of  a  commercial 
traveler  who  has  no  home. 

Laughter  is  cheery,  good-natured,  willing,  but  wearies 
easily.  He  is  a  poor  hand  at  "day's  work"  and  tires  at  a  con 
tinuous  job.  He  is  a  thoroughbred,  and  must  be  humored  and 
well  groomed.  You  can't  work  him  like  a  plow-horse.  He 
shines  most  brightly  at  "piece  work".  He  must  needs  have 
intervals  of  quiet  meditation;  sober  reflection;  tranquil  intro 
spection.  He  must  have  the  inspiration  of  earnest  purpose; 
the  repose  of  a  little  minute  of  prayer. 

Don't  mistake  the  everlasting  barnyard  cackle  that  ema 
nates  from  between  the  roof  of  the  mouth  and  the  epiglottis  for 
laughter.  Unless  there  is  brain  and  heart — intellect  and  love 
in  it — it  isn't  the  laughter  that  I  know  anything  about.  The 
thing  on  the  face  of  a  skull  is  a  grin,  but  it  isn't  a  smile.  It 
used  to  be,  but  the  smile  died  when  it  became  perpetual.  No 
matter  what  the  empty-headed  philosophers  say  on  the  post 
cards,  don't  try  to  smile  all  the  time.  Unless  you  want  people 
to  hate  the  sight  of  you. 

Life  is  a  book  in  which  we  read  a  page  a  day.  We  can't 
read  a  page  ahead;  we  can  not  turn  clear  over  to  the  last 
chapter  to  see  how  it  ends,  because  we  write  the  story  our 
selves,  setting  the  type,  as  a  good  compositor  can  do,  from  the 
copy  of  our  own  thoughts  and  actions,  till  the  evening  of  each 
day  runs  off  the  edition.  The  best  compositor  is  he  who  sets 
each  day's  page  with  the  fewest  errors,  and  wastes  the  least 
time  correcting  a  "dirty  proof". 

Even  with  the  best  of  us,  much  of  each  day's  page  is  an 
"errata"  correcting  the  mistakes  of  yesterday.  Unsinkable 
ships — the  bottom  of  the  sea  is  covered  with  them.  Invulner 
able  armor — it  cumbers  the  reefs,  full  of  holes.  Incontro 
vertible  arguments  and  incontestable  theories — they  lie  dusting 
in  the  scrap-heaps  of  history  and  philosophy,  answered,  con 
tradicted,  disproved  and  thrown  away.  But  the  pages  are — 
392 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

or  should  be — growing  cleaner  every  day.  The  compositor 
learns.  The  child  is  fearless,  knowing  nothing.  So  he  grasps 
the  flaming  candle.  The  old  man  is  cautious,  knowing  too 
much.  He  knows  that  ice  burns  like  fire. 

And  another  thing  to  be  remembered  about  this  book  of  life 
which  every  one  of  us  is  writing,  each  for  himself.  The  pages 
are  all  the  same  size — twenty-four  hours,  brevier  measure. 
"The  evening  and  the  morning  was  the  first  day."  That 
established  the  standard.  And  every  morning  the  inexorable 
office  boy  with  the  intolerable  name  stands  at  your  door  shout 
ing  "copy!"  And  you've  got  to  furnish  it.  Got  to.  Got  to. 
Got  to.  Kill  your  grandmother  once  a  week  to  get  to  the  ball 
game  if  you  will — that  goes  into  your  "story"  and  fills  up  that 
day's  page.  That's  life. 

Is  the  world  as  funny  as  it  used  to  be?  Funnier,  my  son; 
a  great  deal  funnier.  It  grows  "funnier"  as  you  grow  older. 
But  it  doesn't  know  it,  because  it  is  apt  to  be  "funniest"  when 
it  thinks  it  is  wisest.  Laughter  grows  more  serious  as  it  con 
templates  the  funny  old  world.  The  tragedies  of  the  years 
temper  the  jests.  Yes;  I  understand.  I  read  a  paragraph 
about  myself  in  a  critical  editorial  the  other  day,  saying  that 
"ten  years  of  the  ministry  had  taken  much  of  the  ginger  out 
of  old  Bob's  fun". 

It  was  written  by  a  young  man  of  course.  The  things 
that  are  funny  to  him  were  uproariously  funny  to  me  fifty 
years  ago.  I  used  to  write  funny  sketches  about  sudden  death 
and  funerals.  But  during  ten  years  of  the  ministry  I  have  sat 
beside  many  deathbeds,  and  have  stood  beside  many  caskets 
trying  to  speak  words  of  consolation  for  breaking  hearts. 
Today,  I  can't  laugh  over  "Buck  Fanshaw's  Funeral" — the 
funniest  mortuary  narrative  ever  written. 

Misfortunes  used  to  be  my  principal  stock  in  trade  for 
mirthful  sketches.  Ten  years  in  the  ministry  have  made  the 
sorrows  of  thousands  of  people  my  own.  What  a  rollick  there 
used  to  be  in  a  good  poker  story,  told  in  rattling  phrase.  I 
have  seen  too  many  homes  broken  up  and  too  many  lives 
wrecked  by  the  gamblers  to  appreciate  the  humor  of  the  cards. 
Twice  I  have  seen  men  murdered  at  the  gaming  table — and 
each  murder  was  followed  by  a  hanging.  Hard  to  write  funny 
poker  stories  with  those  grisly  phantoms  of  blood  and  stran- 

393 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

gling  leering  up  into  your  face  from  the  white  sheet  under  your 
pen.  Eh? 

And  when  there  was  nothing  else  to  write  about  on  a  dull 
day,  the  drunkard  was  always  an  unfailing  figure  for  comedy. 
What  could  be  funnier  than  a  drunken  man?  Well,  now  I  can 
no  more  appreciate  the  drunken  man,  even  on  the  comic  stage, 
than  the  wife  whose  face  he  bruised  with  his  clenched  fist 
could  appreciate  the  antics  of  her  drunken  husband.  I  have 
seen  the  brute  too  often  at  close  range,  with  all  the  old  manhood 
gone,  and  not  a  thing  but  the  brute  and  the  devil  left. 

Oh,  I  enjoy  life  better  than  ever  I  did.  I  can  assure  my 
critic  that  "ginger  is  still  hot  i'  the  mouth".  The  world  is  just 
as  funny  as  ever.  But  the  fun  has  changed  with  the  point 
of  view.  Don't  you  understand,  son?  It's  the  old  story  of  the 
frogs  and  the  boys.  Humor  is  a  matter  of  personal  taste,  to  a 
great  extent.  What  sends  your  neighbor  into  convulsions  of 
mirth  may  disgust  you  to  the  very  soul.  .  .  . 

The  shadows  are  deepening  around  the  pond  and  the 
stream  is  singing  itself  to  sleep.  But  there  is  yet  a  little  grist 
in  the  hopper,  and  while  the  water  serves  I  will  keep  on  grind 
ing.  And  by  the  time  the  sun  is  down,  and  the  flow  in  the  race 
is  not  enough  to  turn  the  big  wheel,  the  grist  will  have  run  out, 
and  I  will  have  the  old  mill  swept  and  tidied  for  the  night. 
And  then,  for  home  and  a  cheery  evening,  a  quiet  night,  lighted 
with  stars  and  pillowed  with  sleep.  And  after  that,  the  dawn 
ing,  and  another  day;  fairer  than  any  I  have  ever  seen  in  this 
beautiful  world  of  roseate  mornings  and  radiant  sunsets. 

From  Thursday,  August  21st,  to  Monday,  August 
31st,  there  are  no  entries  in  his  diary,  the  reason  for 
which  is  indicated  by  his  entry  of  August  15th: 

"Mighty  sick."  Nothing  very  important  happens  to  a 
man  lying  on  his  back  wondering  what  has  happened  to  him. 
I  am  very  sick,  but  do  not  know  how  long  I  have  been  so. 

And  above  the  blank  pages  afterwards  he  penciled 
a  heading: 

These  monotonous  days  of  sickness  give  no  seed  for  thought 
and  still  less  incident. 

394 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

The  beginning  of  September  found  him  growing 
weaker,  but  his  spirit  still  strong.  On  September  1st 
he  writes: 

Another  month  begins  with  love  and  mercy,  and  I  know 
it  will  rain  blessings  for  thirty  days  to  come.  Not  pleasures, 
which  are  evanescent  and  shortlived  at  the  best  and  longest, 
but  the  blessings  of  God,  which  endure  forever.  Every  morn 
ing  this  month  will  see  a  new  day's  journey  begun  with  God  for 
a  companion.  I  will  not  walk  one  day  without  my  Shepherd  so 
I  will  not  walk  astray.  Thirsting,  I  will  follow  my  Shepherd 
beside  still  waters.  Weary,  I  will  lie  down  in  green  pastures 
and  refresh  my  soul.  All  the  way  He  will  lead  me.  Some  of 
the  days  will  be  dark  and  some  will  be  stormy.  There  will  be 
danger  and  there  will  come  sorrow.  But  the  worst  day  will 
be  safe  as  the  best,  and  be  the  journey  long  or  short,  at  the  last 
I  will  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  forever.  Welcome  the 
month  and  its  days. 

And  the  same  spirit  is  indicated  in  the  entry  for  Sep 
tember  12th: 

Had  a  good  nap  in  the  afternoon  and  came  to  curfew 
"feelin*  fine".  I  am  wonderfully  encouraged.  Hope  is  so 
strong  that  I  cannot  make  the  possible  disappointments 
frighten  me.  I  seem  to  be  growing  stronger  by  weakness. 
But  with  age,  our  disappointments  linger  longer  than  they 
did  in  youth.  We  think  more  about  them.  Youth  has  a  way 
of  trampling  them  under  foot  that  we  lose  in  age  just  when  we 
most  need  to  cultivate  that  contempt  for  them.  After  all,  our 
disappointments  are  our  own  self-inflicted  penalties  for  our 
greater  devotion  to  our  own  schemes,  rather  than  to  God's 
plans  for  us. 

On  September  13th  he  wrote: 

I  find  that  writing  is  an  increasing  burden  to  my  awkward 
hands. 

Until  his  body  grew  so  weak  that  the  physical  task 
of  writing  was  impossible,  he  was  loyal  to  his  pen  and 
typewriter.  This  is  the  entry  for  September  17th: 

395 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

My  siesta  lasted  until  4  P.  M.,  and  I  could  have  slept  longer, 
but  I  want  to  write  a  column  for  the  Times — the  first  thing 
I  have  written  since  I  was  seventy  years  old. 

September  19th: 

I  finished  my  Times  article,  "A  Sick  Man  Goes  to  War." 

His  last  contribution  to  the  Times  was  written  late 
in  September— "Don't  Duck  Jim": 

Jim  in  the  front  rank  is  dodging  "the  big  ones".  Right 
behind  him  his  file  closer,  Bill,  trying  to  imitate  him,  reproves 
him: 

"Don't  duck,  Jim,  doggone  it— I'm  right  behind  you!" 

The  sentiment  may  be  gathered  from  the  closing 
paragraph: 

Boy,  honored  by  any  station  on  the  firing  line,  when  the 
firing  is  the  hottest,  when  the  temptation  to  run  is  the  fiercest, 
when  fear  is  stronger  than  honor,  forget  yourself.  Think  of  the 
fellows  right  behind  you,  whose  good  name  God  has  entrusted 
to  you,  who  will  fall  down  if  you  shrink,  who  will  run  if  you 
tremble,  who  will  get  drunk  if  you  drink,  who  will  lie  if  you 
"prevaricate",  and  "don't  duck,  Jim".  Think  of  the  poor 
fellow  behind  you. 

His  weakness  increased  in  latter  September,  for  on 
September  25th  he  says: 

I  think  I  am  growing  weaker  these  days.  I  cannot  walk 
so  far,  and  I  come  home  from  my  drives  a  little  more  weary 
than  formerly. 

But  his  humor  survived  his  weakness.  His  teeth 
had  been  through  his  life  a  source  of  constant  pain  and 
trouble,  and  he  inveighs  against  them  on  September 
26th: 

Teeth  were  the  first  curse  of  the  human  race.  Sin  came 
with  the  first  bite  of  the  forbidden  fruit.  My  teeth  have  been 
to  me  a  source  of  disfigurement  and  pain  and  all  manner  of 

396 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

trouble  ever  since  I  have  known  anything  about  them.  The 
ways  of  the  Creator  are  wonderful  indeed,  but  I  must  say  He 
has  done  about  the  worst  dental  work  for  me  I  ever  knew  to 
misfit  the  mouth  of  a  human  being.  I  don't  know  what  I 
would  have  done  but  for  the  improvements  now  and  then  of 
human  workmen. 

September  27th,  his  diary  is  headed — 

Roy's  birthday — thirty-two  years  old,  [this  written  in  very 
large  print],  and  he  weighs  180  pounds.  Here  his  Daddy  is 
over  seventy,  [and  written  in  very  small  print]  and  he  weighs 
only  139  pounds. 

And  that  same  day,  with  a  sweet  joy,  he  made  his 
final  effort  at  concentration  on  expression  with  rhythm 
and  wrote  for  Roy's  birthday,  the  following: 

To  MY  SON  ROY 

A  Prayer  for  his  32nd  birthday 

Dawn  of  another  Year!    Come  closer,  Mighty  Guide! 

A  new  path  stretches  from  my  earthly  door; 
Dim  mountains  rise,  and  far  before  me  leads 
A  trail  my  feet  have  never  trod  before. 

Time  brings  more  burdens.    My  task  is  just  begun, 
Then  bring  new  labor  songs  for  me  to  sing; 

You've  taught  me  hymns  to  greet  the  rising  sun, 
Now  teach  me  how  to  praise  the  noon-day  King. 

Chansons  of  Service!  Let  my  gladdened  eyes 
Laugh  with  the  glory  of  each  passing  day; 

Glad  with  the  gladness  of  some  sweet  surprise 
That  marks  the  blessing  of  each  passing  day. 

Make  every  day  a  Birth-day — God  my  Hope, 

New  plans;  new  joys;  new  duties  and  new  dreams; 
Give  me  new  light  when  midst  the  fogs  I  grope, 
And  lead  my  wandering  feet  beside  still  streams. 

Lovingly,  DADDY. 

397 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Just  before  he  left  Eventide  to  return  to  Sunnycrest, 
he  wrote  on  September  28,  1914: 

I  do  trust  God.  It  is  little  to  my  credit.  I  am  so  helpless 
I  can  do  nothing  else  but  trust.  Lord,  I  can  no  longer  try  to 
help  others.  I  can  no  longer  do  any  good  to  others.  Lead  me 
day  by  day  into  the  splendor  of  trust  and  joy  and  hope  and  of 
love. 

The  return  to  Sunnycrest  was  on  September  30th, 
and  his  diary  has  only  occasional  and  fragmentary 
observations  until  October  17th,  when  he  says: 

Splendid  night,  fine  morning.  Woke  up  feeling  fine.  Got 
over  it  by  shaving,  which  I  inflicted  on  myself . 

The  last  efforts  with  his  typewriter  was  when  he 
outlined  a  word  of  greeting  in  response  to  the  real 
estate  men  of  Pasadena,  who  solicited  an  expression  from 
him.  The  manuscript  showed  failing  strength  and 
inability  to  concentrate  upon  the  mechanism  which  had 
served  him  so  many  years. 

He  seemed  to  realize  himself  the  nearness  of  the  end 
of  his  journey,  for  on  October  21st  he  wrote: 

Dr.  Nichols  called  early  this  morning  before  8  o'clock.  I 
reckon  I  must  be  getting  worse.  I  know  I  am  keeping  no 
stronger.  I  shaved  myself  about  11  o'clock  and  the  operation 
made  me  very  tired.  Got  one  letter  in  the  morning  mail, 
which  Sara  answered  for  me.  It  was  from  a  correspondent 
who  sent  me  a  package  of  casaba  melon  seed,  and  wanted  to 
know  when  and  under  what  circumstances  God  made  up  his 
mind  to  destroy  the  race  of  men. 

And  the  last  entry  in  his  diary  is  on  Sunday,  Novem 
ber  1st: 

It  is  very  hard  to  write.  I  guess  my  writing  days  are  ended 
and  the  amanuensis  will  come  on  deck  for  duty. 

398 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS 

He  became  unconscious  a  few  days  later,  lingered 
in  that  state,  with  occasional  momentary  flashes  of 
consciousness,  until  he  died  on  November  19th. 

His  parting  message  to  Temple  Baptist  Church, 
given  to  me  as  I  stood  by  his  bed  during  his  last  con 
scious  moments,  was — 

Give  to  my  dear  church  that  we  builded  together,  my  best, 
best  love,  and  to  my  pastor  and  the  dear,  dear  Sunday  School, 
my  best,  best  love. 

These  last  months  were  filled  with  suffering,  but 
with  a  cheer  and  a  joy  that  was  characteristic  of  his 
spirit.  It  was  a  benediction  to  care  for  him,  and  when, 
after  lingering  days  of  unconsciousness  the  spirit  was 
freed,  the  world  mourned  with  those  whose  hearts  were 
sore  and  broken,  and  expressions  of  sympathy  and 
appreciation  and  tender  devotion  came  from  men  and 
women  who  felt  that  his  contribution  to  life  had  been  so 
much  richer  and  deeper  and  more  far-reaching  than  he 
had  ever  realized. 

The  day  before  his  spirit  fled,  a  beautiful  tribute 
was  paid  him  by  T.  Howard  Wilson: 

LINES  TO  BURDETTE 
By  T.  Howard  Wilson 

He  kept  the  world  in  leash  with  sunny  talk 

A  sweet  philosopher  of  smile  and  fun, 
He  was  a  comrade  of  the  little  folk, 

Who  live  alway  beneath  the  good  warm  sun; 
Quaint  twists  he  gave  to  words  that  kindled  joy, 

No  sombre  thing  could  in  his  presence  thrive, 
A  man  in  whom  was  never  lost  the  boy 

However  thick  the  darkling  shades  that  strive 
To  lure  from  master  truths  that  open  lie 

In  fine  simplicity.    With  vision  clear 

399 


ROBERT  J.    BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

He  traced  the  mystic  labyrinths  of  sky 
And  Earth  and  saw  no  thing  with  eyes  of  fear. 

Those  bitter  words  that  'scape  the  tongues  of  men, 
Wild  jargon  of  the  race  that  scar  with  pain, 

The  dregs  of  hate,  were  shut  without  his  ken, 
His  thoughts  fell  on  the  world  like  gentle  rain. 

But  now  he  treads  the  wine  press  all  alone; 

And  yet,  within  the  valley  where  he  lies, 
Methinks  a  seraph  band  in  joyous  tone 

Uplifts  a  welcome  paean  to  the  skies 
And  round  him  angel  thoughts  from  far  and  near 

Come  fluttering  like  wafted  asphodels 
To  soothe  his  fevered  brow  with  calm  and  cheer, 

While  flower  spirits  swing  their  tinkling  bells. 
And  if,  and  if  the  voyage  soon  must  come 

From  sphere  of  light  to  light  of  other  spheres, 
We'll  keep  his  kindly  humor  as  a  chum 

To  walk  with  us  adown  the  falling  years. 


400 


CHAPTER  XIII 
SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

BEFORE  this  record  is  closed  and  the   final 
tribute  is  made  I  feel  that  there  should  be  set 
down  more  intimate  glimpses  of  the  burning 
fire  of  the  spirit  which  has  been  so  constantly 
revealed  in  the  preceding  pages.     In  the  close  rela 
tionships  of  home  the  assertion  can  be  made  with  all 
truth  and  no  reservations,  that  just  as  Mr.  Burdette 
gave  expression  of  it  to  the  public  on  every  occasion,  so 
he  revealed  his  wonderful  spirit  in  the  innermost  sacred- 
ness  of  family  life.    There  was  little  reaction  of  spirit,  so 
often  credited  to  temperamental  people.    If  there  was, 
the  hour  alone  with  his  own  soul  and  with  God  con 
quered  it.     We,  who  knew  and  loved  him  best,  always 
revelled  in  that  sweetness  and  tenderness  which  he  so 
peculiarly  and  abundantly  possessed. 

This  may  not  have  been  always  true,  for  it  was  but 
natural  that  a  temperament  as  quick,  active  and  virile 
as  his  should  sometimes  "be  hot  with  temper  unre 
strained"  and  his  brothers  and  sisters  recall  that  as  a 
boy  he  "would  fight  at  the  drop  of  the  hat  and  if  it 
did  not  drop  he  would  see  that  it  did".  During  the 
army  days  his  anger  strengthened  his  courage  to  fight 
and  not  until  the  after-war  years  had  schooled  him 
fully  in  self  control  was  he  able,  "through  the  grace  of 
God  which  overcometh  all  things/'  to  turn  to  service 
this  passion  which  had  sometimes  almost  mastered  him. 
He  always  expressed  his  positive  belief  that  humor 
was  so  close  to  pathos  they  could  not  be  separated,  and 
used  the  life  of  Charles  Lamb,  one  of  the  greatest  of 

26  401 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

humorists,  to  illustrate  how  true  humor  is  born  of 
trouble  and  sorrow.  In  his  own  life  was  the  setting  of 
this  background,  not  only  the  memory  of  struggles 
with  early  poverty,  the  grief  over  the  loss  of  loved  ones, 
but  the  ever  present  tragedy  of  contest  with  a  trouble, 
or  was  it  a  disease?  Not  of  the  head  or  the  heart  surely, 
but  a  disarrangement  of  the  nervous  system,  aggravated 
perhaps  by  fatigue  from  travel  and  over-work  in  his 
profession. 

At  times,  like  many  another  genius,  he  turned  in  his 
uncontrollable  weakness  to  stimulant  for  solace.  It 
may  be,  who  knows,  his  occasional  stumbling  by  the 
way  in  the  earlier  days  chastened  and  so  blessed  him 
with  that  glorified  sympathy  which  in  the  later  years 
seemed  to  reach  out  from  his  very  soul  to  protect  and 
help  those  similarly  afflicted.  Biographers  as  a  rule 
give  us  only  the  best  from  the  lives  of  their  heroes,  but 
I  would  be  false  to  a  sacred  trust  in  recording  the 
greatest  achievements  in  the  life  of  my  husband,  if  I 
did  not  repeat  in  his  own  words  the  reply  to  a  pleading 
letter  from  an  intimate  friend,  based  on  the  thought 
that  the  cure  lay  in  his  own  will. 

BRYN  MAWR,  Saturday  morning. 
DEAR  MRS.  M : 

It  was  the  thought  of  a  friend,  good  and  sincere  and  kind, 
to  write  as  you  did.  You  see  why  I  wanted  to  come  home  as 
fast  as  steam  and  wheels  could  carry  me. 

All  that  you  say  I  have  thought  of,  not  for  a  day  and  for 
once  and  twice  but  for  a  long,  long  time  and  a  thousand  times. 
They  creep  into  my  thoughts  at  my  desk;  they  make  thorny 
a  sleepless  pillow;  they  come  into  my  jests  with  bitter  mockery 
on  the  platform;  while  people  are  laughing  at  a  man  with  a 
heart  so  heavy  and  sore  that  his  face  is  only  a  grotesque  mask. 
Think  of  these  things?  I  would  give  anything  in  the  world  if 
I  could  quit  thinking  of  them  long  enough  to  get  quiet  and 
rested. 
402 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

Don't  worry  yourselves  thinking  about  me.  There  will 
be  no  more  trouble  anyhow  for  three  months.  The  period  is 
as  regular  as  the  calendar.  And  the  fall  is  like  a  man  stepping 
off  a  wall  in  the  dark.  There  is  no  fear,  no  apprehension 
beyond  the  dread  that  is  constantly  present — until  the  step  is 
taken.  He  just  steps  off,  and  there  is  no  use  in  his  screaming 
after  that. 

I  didn't  intend  to  say  more  than  "thank  you"  with  all 
sincerity  for  your  letter.  But  I  have  gone  on  and  burdened 
you  with  my  troubles.  I  won't  write  you  in  this  vein  again. 
I  quit  making  promises  long  ago.  The  man  who  means  them 
the  least  makes  them  the  most  fluently.  But  I  want  to  assure 
you  that  I  am  not  hopeless.  I  don't  give  up.  I  am  sure  that 
I  will  overcome  this,  yet.  I  hope  and  pray  and  am  strong  in 
my  belief  that  the  dreaded  days  will  come  sometime  and  pass 
by  without  touching  me.  I  am  sure  of  this. 

This  is  no  secret  of  mine.  All  my  family  know  of  it.  And 
their  patience  and  gentleness  and  tenderness  make  my  own 
condemnation  the  more  terrible.  But  please  God  the  morning 
will  dawn  sometime. 

Meanwhile,  we  must  live  and  we  must  work  at  the  only 
thing  I  can  do  and  go  on  in  my  light-hearted  business  of  making 
people  laugh  and  assuring  them  that  life  is  a  bed  of  roses  with 
a  counterpane  of  sunshine — no  wonder  that  the  wise  man  of 
old  time  said  of  laughter,  "  It  is  made." 

Good-bye;  God  bless  you  for  your  kind  words  and  the 
friendly  heart  that  prompted  them. 

Sincerely  your  friend, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

God's  answer  to  our  sincere  prayers  are  often  given 
through  human  agencies  and  His  answer  to  the  constant 
petition  was  finally  fully  given  through  the  immediate 
environment  of  comfortable  surroundings,  relief  from 
financial  worry,  an  all-absorbing,  continuous  work  to 
do,  sympathetic  understanding  and  all-surrounding 
love  that  daily  gave  strength  to  courage. 

All  this  he  felt  deeply  about,  and  as  I  sat  by  his 

403 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

bedside  at  twilight,  Sunday  evening,  August  23d,  after 
his  three  days  of  coma,  he  said: 

I  feel  as  Riley  does — I  am  anxious  to  see  what  Heaven  is 
like.  I  know  this  world,  I  have  traveled  over  its  lands  and 
seas — I  know  what  life  here  is,  now  I  want  to  know  what 
Heaven  is.  It  will  be  the  greatest  surprise  I  have  ever  had. 
I  have  thought  a  great  deal  about  it,  preached  about  it,  theor 
ized  about  it  and  here  I  am  with  nothing  left  but  to  go  to 
Heaven,  and  I  don't  know  what  it  will  be  like.  Will  there  be 
nothing  but  harp  music  there — I  have  heard  better  orchestras 
than  that  here.  Will  it  be  singing — mostly  feminine  voices 
with  the  volume  left  out — that  would  not  be  perfect  music. 
And  the  robes — our  ideas  are  all  ancient.  Certainly  the  dear 
Lord  must  have  some  modern  idea. 

But  my  darling,  how  will  I  find  you?  You  and  I  must  be 
together.  Our  life  has  been  so  wonderful  together,  we  have 
had  the  same  interests,  we  have  walked  side  by  side,  we  have 
so  loved  and  you  who  have  been  my  good  angel  with  healing 
wings  that  have  overshadowed  me,  heaven  would  not  be 
heaven  without  you  by  my  side. 

Many  of  the  marked  personal  peculiarities  of  his 
mature  public  years  were  but  the  natural  development 
of  the  boyish  tricks  and  manners.  His  sister,  writing 
of  his  part  in  the  early  family  life,  says: 

Rob  and  his  whistle  are  indelibly  connected  in  my  memory. 
And  his  son  says: 

many  were  the  songs  of  the  church  which  he  hummed  and 
whistled  while  busy  in  his  den.  Siloam  was  one  of  his  favorite 
hymns.  Many  a  summer's  morning  in  the  yesterdays  of  boy 
hood  have  I  watched  him  shaving  while  the  strains  of  this  old 
hymn,  sung  by  his  own  mother  in  the  "days  befo'  the  wah" 
when  Peoria  was  a  frontier  city  in  the  far  west,  was  whistled 
and  sung  alternately  by  him. 

He  nearly  always  whistled  or  sang  before  he  arose 
in  the  morning  not  only  because  he  believed  that  one 

404 


SOME  INTIMATE   PHASES 

should  start  the  day  in  a  happy  frame  of  mind,  but 
because  "it  just  did  itself".  This  cheery  spirit  of  him 
was  always  good  medicine  for  the  household. 

To  have  rollicked  through  life  with  a  song  and  a 
whistle  and  to  have  earned  his  living  by  talking  and  to 
have  never  known  he  was  tongue-tied  until  he  was  sixty- 
one  years  old,  was  what  he  considered  the  greatest  joke 
of  his  life. 

Mr.  Burdette  was  passionately  fond  of  music.  His 
poetic  temperament  was  tried  more  by  the  sentiment 
than  by  the  technique.  In  speaking  of  his  own  accom 
plishments  once,  he  said: 

I  play  the  fiddle  by  note,  ear  and  main  strength,  and  to  avoid 
getting  into  deep  water  I  never  attempt  any  compositions  that 
have  been  written  within  the  past  seventy-five  years. 

He  came  of  a  family  of  nine  children,  four  girls  and 
five  boys,  and  his  father  used  to  speak  of  having  just 
enough  for  a  quadrille  set  and  a  fiddler,  and  it  is  easy 
to  believe  that  "Bob"  played  many  parts.  Later 
many  of  his  own  poems  were  set  to  music.  "Alone", 
"When  my  Ship  Comes  In"  and  for  words  of  his,  John 
Philip  Sousa  wrote  the  music  to  "Reveille"  in  1890. 

A  comment  of  his  found  among  his  notes  reads: 

The  report  of  a  Sunday  meeting  where  they  heard  "The  Star 
Spangled  Banner"  and  "Dixie".  One  called  forth  shouts  and 
hand  clapping.  The  other — the  men  stood  up  in  silence  and 
uncovered  heads.  "Dixie"  is  a  shout — a  rollick.  "The  Star 
Spangled  Banner"  is  a  prayer. 

Another  personal  peculiarity  is  revealed  in  a  corre 
spondence  between  him  and  a  young  newspaper  woman 
who  was  carrying  on  a  campaign  against  the  wearing  of 
mustaches.  She  had  unwittingly  taken  the  advice  of 

405 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

someone  to  write  to  the  author  of  "The  Rise  and  Fall  of 
the  Mustache "  for  assistance  and  encouragement  in 
the  highly  exciting  endeavor.  His  reply  follows: 

SUNNYCREST,  PASADENA, 

Christmas-tide,  1912. 
MY  DEAR  "HELEN  HOYT": 

Alas,  you  have  sounded  the  trumpet  call  for  reinforcements 
at  the  wrong  camp.  The  man  who  told  you  didn't  hear  straight. 
My  "Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Mustache"  made  its  "fall"  its  glory. 

I  never  had  a  razor  touch  my  upper  lip.  I  have  worn  hair 
on  it  more  than  sixty-eight  years.  All  the  mighty  men  of 
earth's  generations  have  worn  hair  on  their  faces  from  the  days 
of  Samson  to  the  Emperor  William.  What  would  Barbarossa 
look  like  without  the  big  red  beard  growing  down  through  the 
stone  table?  Who  would  be  afraid  of  Blackbeard  with  a 
Richard-Harding-Davis  bald  face?  What  would  Blue  Beard 
be  with  a  shaven  lip?  Imagine  a  bare-faced  Santa  Glaus. 
King  David  went  to  war  to  avenge  the  shaving  of  his  ambassa 
dors.  The  "  oath  on  the  beard  "  is  as  old  as  history.  Moham 
medans  still  swear  by  the  "beard  of  the  prophet".  The  Cecils, 
Greshams,  Raleighs,  Drakes  and  Walsinghams  of  England  were 
bearded  folks.  All  the  royal  houses  of  Europe  today  go 
bearded  like  the  bard.  The  cavalier  beard  marked  the  gentle 
man. 

"Votes  for  Women"  and  whiskers  for  men!  We  are  deter 
mined  to  keep  something  masculine  that  is  all  our  own.  "  Side 
boards"  are  already  back  into  wear  in  England.  Women, 
priests  and  actors  may  go  barefaced  as  they  will.  Real  men 
are  going  to  wear  hair  on  their  faces.  Germs?  Statistics  show 
that  bearded  men  live  longer,  have  better  teeth,  less  sore  throat, 
and  stronger  voices  than  baldfaced  men.  Hospital  statistics 
prove  that  not  one  case  of  masculine  pneumonia  in  seventeen 
has  whiskers.  And  tuberculosis  is  sweeping  the  beardless 
Indians  off  the  earth. 

Sorry  I  can't  help  you,  daughter,  but  I  stand  by  the  bearded 
monsters  of  my  sex. 

Cordially  yours, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 
406 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

The  courage  to  be  so  "exceptional"  was  the  same 
kind  of  spirit  that  made  him  in  his  teens  "swagger  like 
a  dandy  and  tilt  his  hat  over  one  ear".  And  yet  the 
pill-box  cap  and  the  setting-up  exercises  of  the  army 
brought  to  the  later  years  times  when  the  military 
bearing  and  the  dignified  "top  hat"  gave  the  impres 
sion  of  a  much  larger  man  than  five  feet  four  would 
measure.  With  all  his  courage  he  was  a  shy,  timid  man 
in  certain  ways  and  it  was  said  of  him: 

He  had  ever  been  a  bashful  boy,  grievously  tormented  with  his 
hands  and  sore  stricken  with  his  feet  in  company  and  much 
given  to  the  sitting  on  the  edges  of  chairs. 

So  strong  were  these  habits  of  youth,  I  have  many 
and  many  a  time  seen  him  come  onto  a  platform  and 
while  waiting  for  the  formal  introduction,  sit  on  the 
edge  of  the  chair,  double  up  his  fists  and  place  them  one 
on  top  of  the  other  with  a  little  beating  motion,  rise  and 
walk  to  the  front  of  the  platform  with  an  uncertain 
tread,  as  if  he  was  too  shy  to  talk,  while  in  the  heart  of 
him  he  knew  that  before  three  sentences  were  uttered 
his  audience  "would  rise  to  my  fly"  and  they  would 
rollick  with  him  through  two  hours  of  lecture  that 
always  left  them  better  and  happier, 

In  later  years  he  had  some  peculiarities,  which  were 
different  from  the  ordinary  minister.  He  seldom  spoke 
over  twenty  minutes  and  always  put  into  his  sermon 
some  dramatic  turn  which  made  the  audience  remember 
it.  For  example,  once  he  preached  on  the  story  of  the 
withered  hand.  All  during  the  sermon  he  held  one 
hand  and  arm  perfectly  still  and  when  he  came  to  the 
point  where  he  quoted  "stretch  forth  thy  hand",  he 
lifted  with  dramatic  effect  that  hand  which  for  twenty 
minutes  he  had  held  absolutely  still. 

407 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

It  may  not  be  unusual  that  a  nature  like  his  should 
care  little  for  money  except  for  the  comfort  and  freedom 
it  might  bring  that  enabled  him  to  be  a  better  workman, 
and  that  he  might  contribute  the  same  to  others.  He 
entered  upon  a  great  adventure  once  with  never  a 
thought  of  financial  possibilities. 

His  purse  may  not  have  had  much  but  his  heart  was 
full  of  hope  and  courage  and  devotion  that  compelled 
success.  When  a  young  couple  came  to  Mr.  Burdette 
once  to  be  married  and  after  the  ceremony  he  discovered 
they  hadn't  but  fifty  cents  between  them,  he  told  them 
to  keep  it  and  gave  them  a  dollar,  saying,  "  Go  out  and 
get  a  little  wedding  supper.  I  know  how  it  is  myself". 

While  his  earning  ability  was  much  above  his  fellow- 
craftsmen,  he  was  never  a  saver  of  money,  and  it  slipped 
from  him  more  rapidly  than  it  came.  He  comforted 
himself  with  his  usual  philosophical  humor  when  he 
said: 

I  do  not  believe  very  much  in  saving  anyhow.  I  once  bent 
my  energies  to  the  task  of  saving  up  a  barrel  of  money,  and 
when  I  got  it  saved  a  man  said  he  knew  just  the  best  place  in 
the  world  to  plant  it  to  make  it  grow,  so  I  gave  it  to  him  and 
he  planted  it.  Planted  it  well,  too ;  away  down  below  the  frost 
line.  It  is  there  yet.  It  may  come  up  on  resurrection  day, 
but  I  doubt  it.  And  every  time  I  think  of  it  I  cry.  I  wish 
I  had  spent  it  myself. 

And  yet  he  was  not  given  to  spending  money  for 
himself  further  than  the  usual  necessities  of  life.  His 
chief  concern  was  for  others  who  had  not  his  earning 
capacity  or  who  through  misfortune  were  unequal  to 
meeting  the  demands  of  life.  He  helped  in  the  educa 
tion  of  various  young  people  of  his  family  and  made 
regular  contributions  for  many  years  toward  the  care 
and  support  of  an  invalid  sister  who  survived  him.  He 
408 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

was  always  a  helpful  brother  to  both  brothers  and 
sisters  and  when  sending  checks  he  always  made  some 
observation  which  to  say  the  least  was  not  an  obvious 
one: 

I  enclose  a  plaster  for  chilblains.  Put  it  where  it  will  do 
the  most  good. 

I  enclose  a  little  check  as  an  advance  agent  of  prosperity. 

Another  note: 

I  sent  a  V.  for  her  Easter  hat.  A  girl  at  her  age  likes  these 
things  and  gets  blessed  few  of  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  wrote  to  one  of  his  sisters: 

A  retired  grocer  out  here  tried  to  collect  one  of — or — bills 
about  $85.00  from  me  a  few  weeks  ago.  He  is  slowly  recovering 
consciousness,  but  does  not  yet  remember  what  hit  him. 

When  going  abroad  once  he  entered  into  a  contract 
with  a  young  man  to  furnish  weekly  letters  for  a  syn 
dicate  he  was  running.  Mr.  Burdette  did  his  part 
often  depriving  himself  of  time  for  sight-seeing  and 
going  to  the  expense  of  gathering  information  and  illus 
trations  for  the  same.  The  young  man  paid  him  very 
little  money  and  some  six  years  after  when  he  sent  him 
$100,  leaving  a  balance  of  $1300  still  due,  and  saying 
he  acted  on  Mr.  Burdette's  advice  and  paid  all  his 
other  debts  first,  Mr.  Burdette  cancelled  the  rest  of  the 
debt  with  the  advice  that  he  pay  the  rest  to  the  Lord. 

A  Ventura  paper  printed  the  following,  headed 
"Bob  Burdette's  All  Right": 

In  his  opening  remarks  at  the  Commencement  exercises 
last  Thursday  night,  he  said  in  effect: 

"  I  came  to  Ventura  to  lecture  on  this  occasion  from  purely 
commercial  motives.  I  had  intended  and  made  a  contract 
with  the  Board  of  Trustees  to  that  effect,  to  soak  them  for 
seventy-five  dollars  for  a  lecture  on  '  Rainbow  Chaser.'  But 
when  I  heard  the  opening  address  of  Prof.  Kauffman,  I  immedi- 

409 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

ately  chopped  ten  dollars  off  the  bill  and  then  when  I  heard 
Nat  Brown  in  his  splendid  address  and  valedictory,  I  cut  that 
bill  down  just  fifteen  dollars  more.  So  the  trustees  will  get 
this  lecture  for  just  fifty  dollars." 

This  opening  sally  occasioned  much  merriment  and  was 
taken  as  another  of  Burdette's  witticisms. 

On  the  way  to  his  hotel  with  F.  W.  Baker,  he  said,  "My 
audience  thought  that  was  a  joke,  but  I  meant  it."  That  he 
was  as  good  as  his  word  was  evidenced  by  the  following  letter 
and  statement  received  today  by  B.  W.  Dudley. 

SUNNYCREST,   PASADENA,   CALIFORNIA, 

June  16,  1903. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  DUDLEY: 

Yours  of  the  13th  just  received.  All  right,  I  enclose  a 
"Rainbow  Chaser"  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  law.  My 
agreement  with  the  Committee  was  for  $75.00.  But  Ventura 
has  always  been  good  to  me,  I  am  very  fond  of  the  people  there, 
and  they  gave  me  such  a  hearty  reception  and  such  a  splendid 
class  to  "graduate  with"  that  I  think  I  got  some  of  my  fee  in 
my  welcome. 

Cordially  yours, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

STATEMENT 

PASADENA,  CALIFORNIA. 

June  16th,  1903. 
The  Board  of  Trustees,  Ventura  High  School 

to 

Robert  J.  Burdette,  Dr. 
To  lecture  on  "Rainbow  Chasers",  Commencement 

night $75.00 

Credit, 

By  Enthusiastic  Audience,  Cordial  Wel 
come  and  Splendid  Class 25 . 00 

To  Balance $50.00 

And  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  own  accounts 
were  frequently  in  "red  ink".  Here  is  his  own  illustra 
tion  of  this  condition:  A  heavy  sheet  of  paper  with 
410 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

caption  in  large  fancy  lettering  in  red  ink  "  What  do  You 
do  with  All  Your  Money? "  Then  in  black  ink  a  date 
and  amount  of  deposits.  An  itemized  list  of  amounts 
checked  out,  which  is  totaled  in  red  ink,  leaving  a  small 
balance  of  $26.70.  And  in  black  ink,  "I  still  owe 
printer's  bill  $90.00  and  Barker  Bros.  $56.65."  Total 
in  red  ink  $146.65,  and  in  fancy  letters,  "Aw,  what's 
the  Use?" 

On  this  is  pasted  a  book  that  he  had  cut  out  of  some 
advertisement  bearing  on  its  cover  "Where  have  My 
Profits  Gone?"  Now  this  was  just  to  please  his  own 
fancy,  for  no  one  ever  saw  it,  but  for  the  same  pleasure 
and  delight  he  spent  time  to  illustrate  with  transferred 
pictures  or  pen  sketches,  cards,  letters  to  friends,  book 
inscriptions.  He  had  a  fancy  for  taking  covers  of  old 
publications  like  the  Literary  Digest  and  decorating 
them  with  pictures  clipped  from  other  magazines, 
which  would  illustrate  the  title  he  was  to  put  on  in 
fancy  lettering,  such  as  "On  the  Ways"  which  meant 
that  the  notes  and  clippings  filed  in  this  cover  were  in 
dry  dock  to  be  set  afloat  when  repaired  or  finished. 
His  genius  for  this  was  most  unusual.  I  have  known 
him  to  write  fifty  or  sixty  titles  for  a  book,  a  lecture  or 
an  article,  only  one  of  which  was  to  be  used,  but  all  of 
them  unusually  striking  and  unique. 

On  a  slip  of  paper  stuck  in  one  corner  of  the  blotter 
on  his  desk  he  wrote: 

My  Laundry  bill  down  here  I  set 
Lest  I  forget,  Lest  I  forget! 
Yours  truly — Robert  J.  Burdette. 

This  to  remind  him  of  something  which  certainly  was 
not  laundry.  On  another  bit  of  irregular  paper,  two 
pieces  pasted  together,  he  had  typed  off  records  of  what 
he  styled  "Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Birthday  Weights  of 

411 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

R.  J.  B.",  and  these  began  with  July  30, 1880,  and  came 
down  to  January,  1914,  the  year  he  died,  and  that  year 
a  record  was  made  for  every  month  up  to  a  month  before 
he  died,  September  30th,  139  pounds.  By  a  queer 
coincidence  which  he  noted,  his  greatest  weight,  150 
pounds,  was  the  year  he  first  came  to  California,  the 
year  he  next  came  to  California  and  the  year  he  finally 
came  out  here  to  live. 

It  was  his  pleasure  to  remember  his  friends  with 
autographed  copies  of  books,  photographs,  and  cards, 
the  work  of  his  mind  and  pen  and  in  each  case  his 
inscriptions  were  intimately  personal,  sincere  and 
never  wholly  formal.  They  would,  if  gathered  together, 
make  a  little  volume  of  fragrant  memories,  but  I  quote 
only  a  few  at  random: 

From  the  same  old  friend  in  the  same  old  place 
To  the  young  old  friend  with  the  sweet  young  face, 
Nothing  so  young  as  the  old  and  true 
So  the  same  old  love  I  send  to  you. 

In  a  book  entitled,  "How  to  Live  on  Twenty-four 
Hours  a  Day",  he  wrote: 

To  my  busy  Little  Wife,  who  shows  'em  how  to  do  it  on 
48  hours  a  day,  with  a  Christmas  kiss  from  her  Lazy  Old 
Husband. 

In  a  book  sent  as  a  Christmas  gift  to  the  President, 
he  wrote  the  following  inscription: 

To 

Woodrow  Wilson 
Head  Master 

of  the 
Greatest  National  School  on  Earth 

Full  of 

Boys  and  Girls 
Good,  Bad  and  Indifferent; 
White,  Red,  Yellow,  Brown  and  Black 
412 


SOME  INTIMATE   PHASES 

A  Very 

Rainbow  of  Humanity 

Presaging  Clear  Weather  and  a  Beautiful  Tomorrow 
Restless;  Eager;  Turbulent  and  Tractable 

This 

With  All  Cheery  Christmas  Greeting 
And  All  Loyal  Affection 

From  One  of  His 
Republican  Boys,  who  is  trying  Hard  to  Be  Good 

But  Hasn't  yet  got  caught  at  it. 

With  the  earnest  Hope  that  the  New  Year  will  be 

Even  Better  than  the  Old 

Very  Respectfully  and  Most  Cordially 

In  a  book  which  he  purchased  for  himself,  entitled, 
"The  Dawn  of  the  World ",  is  this: 

To  my  faithful  Old  Comrade— Myself :  With  whom  I  first 
saw  the  dawn  of  the  world,  and  in  whose  constant  companion 
ship  I  am  now  watching  its  sunset — this,  with  the  'affectionate 
greetings  of  Robert  J.  Burdette. 

He  had  a  fashion  of  terse,  epigrammatic  and  force 
ful  expression  of  his  ideas  that  got  to  the  heart  of  his 
subject  in  a  line  or  two,  for  example,  in  a  letter  to  a 
clerical  friend  who  had  written  some  observations  of 
California,  he  said: 

I  perceive  in  your  pleasant  notes  on  California  you  do  not 
consider  that  numerical  increase  is  an  infallible  indication  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  the  church.  Neither  do  I.  Nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  do  I  consider  a  steady  decline  in  numbers  an  indication 
of  the  great  powers  of  grace.  So  we  are  both  happy. 

Written  under  a  photograph  of  his: 

Some  people  are  like  carpet  tacks— they  mean  the  most 
mischief  when  they  point  upwards.  Honestly  yours,  Robert 
J.  Burdette. 

413 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

And  on  the  back  of  a  photograph  sent  to  his  son  in 
the  early  nineties,  is  this  inspiring  bit  of  verse,  "Com 
rades": 

Comrade  of  mine  when  the  way  is  long 
We'll  cheer  the  trail  with  a  marching  song; 
When  the  battle  breaks  at  the  bugle  call 
We'll  lock  our  shields  in  a  fighting  wall, 
And  strike  good  blows  in  a  common  might, 
I  to  the  left  and  you  to  the  right. 
When  the  twilight  shade  on  the  hills  is  bent, 
We'll  sit  in  the  door  of  our  evening  tent 
And  talk  of  the  joys  of  Long  Ago, 
And  Tomorrow's  hopes  in  the  after-glow, 
When  the  midnight's  stars  in  the  skies  are  set, 
And  the  fire  burns  low  and  the  embers  fret, 
We'll  sleep  on  the  down  of  a  hard  fought  field, 
On  the  velvet  rest  of  a  dented  shield, 
And  rest  till  the  bugle  shall  call  away 
To  the  nobler  work  of  a  longer  day. 

In  a  book  given  to  his  nurse  two  weeks  before  he 
died,  he  wrote  his  last  inscription: 

In  the  twilight  of  a  friendship  made  tender  by  the  shadows 
of  farewell  and  with  many  memories  of  your  constant  care, 
most  affectionately  your  friend,  Robert  J.  Burdette. 

He  loved  to  call  his  friends  by  names  that  he  him 
self  attached  to  them  and  they  became  a  cherished 
memory  of  these  friends.  Grace  Hortense  Tower,  a 
newspaper  woman  whom  Mr.  Burdette  afterwards 
married  to  John  T.  Warren,  of  Honolulu,  wrote: 

I  can  never  forget  the  way  he  looked  when  he  called  me 
"Daughter"  nor  the  sweetness  of  his  smile  when  he  used  to 
call  me  by  the  name  he  gave  me,  "  The  Little  Girl  in  the  Corner." 

His  sister  Mary  he  called  "Little  Dorrit"  early  in 
life,  and  later,  "  Burdock "  after  characters  in  books 

414 


SOME   INTIMATE  PHASES 

that  he  fancied.  For  the  same  reason  he  called  his 
sister  Anna,  "Jo"  after  Jo  in  "Little  Women".  He 
called  his  own  son,  when  a  small  boy,  "The  Prince" 
and  himself  to  his  son  as  "Zebsee".  My  son,  Roy,  he 
always  called  "buddie"  and  Roy's  wife  Helen,  he  early 
named  "Blossom"  and  never  called  her  by  any  other 
name.  She  in  turn  called  him  "Daddy-Bob-o-link" 
as  she  delighted  to  call  me  "Jonquil  Mother".  These 
intimate  family  names  seemed  to  hold  for  him  a  sweet 
ness  of  affectionate  devotion  that  was  the  very  essence 
of  his  heart  life. 

For  no  other  name  did  he  so  let  his  fancy  run  riot 
as  my  own.  Not  more  than  half  a  dozen  times  in  our 
years  together  do  I  remember  of  his  calling  me  or  writing 
of  me  by  my  given  name,  Clara.  Most  of  them  were 
endearing  names,  for  which  he  was  past  master  for 
creating  and  cannot  be  listed  here,  but  are  very  sweet 
to  the  memory  as  the  years  glide  past.  The  year  before 
we  were  married  he  came  to  California,  and  at  the 
entrance  to  my  home  was  a  large  bed  of  fragrant  white 
violets,  and  from  that  moment  he  called  me  "Violet"; 
marking  my  silver  "Violet",  writing  his  poems  to  that 
name  and  idealizing  my  life  by  the  white  violets. 

In  turn,  not  only  his  own  boys,  but  many,  many 
other  young  people  called  him  "Daddy"  with  an 
affection  that  he  used  to  declare  "made  the  old  man  a 
boy  again".  As  is  frequently  the  case  with  public 
men,  his  name  was  sometimes  used  for  commercial 
purposes,  as  when  they  named  a  cigar  after  him,  and 
the  South  affectionately  called  a  racing  horse, 
"Robert  J." 

Naturally  he  loved  much  more  the  "Bob  Burdette 
Club"  of  boys,  a  group  of  grade  boys  in  Des  Moines, 
Iowa,  who  organized  in  1896,  with  their  aim,  "To  keep 

415 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

our  own  hearts  glad  and  make  some  other  heart  glad 
every  day".  The  name  was  chosen  after  the  teacher 
had  told  them  "The  Story  of  Rollo"  as  given  in  a 
lecture  by  "the  funny  man,  Robert  J.  Burdette". 
The  name  was  soon  shortened  to  "The  Bobs"  and  as 


A  BUBDETTE  THANKSOIVING  PROCLAMATION. 


416 


MRS.  ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE 

"Viokt" 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

the  boys  grew  older,  they  began  bringing  Mr.  Burdette 
to  Des  Moines  to  lecture  for  them.  The  last  time  he 
went  for  them  his  lecture  on  "The  Rainbow  Chaser" 
made  enough  money  for  them  to  furnish  their  club 
house  and  pay  $125  into  the  building  fund  for  a  new 
church. 

This  message  was  received  from  them: 

From  Honolulu,  China  and  the  Islands  of  the  Sea,  always 
The  Bobs  passed  on  the  loving,  kindly  influence  of  their  Patron 
Saint,  and  when  he  went  on  into  the  sunset  glow,  the  men  who 
had  crowned  him  twenty  years  before,  bared  their  heads  and 
reverently  laid  their  roses  of  boyish  love  and  manly  allegiance 
at  the  shrine  of  his  memory. 

He  loved  most  of  all  the  babies  that  admiring  parents 
had  given  his  name  to,  forty-two  of  whom  bore  his  name 
in  one  form  or  another  when  he  passed  on.  Even 
since  then  there  have  been  parents  with  fragrant 
memories  and  appreciation  in  their  hearts  who  have 
called  their  little  ones  by  his  name. 

One  distant  relative  there  is  who  early  named  her 
self  Bob,  because  of  her  affection  for  him.  And  one 
stately  woman  there  is,  fine,  regal  and  lovely,  now  in 
her  widowed  robes,  who  was  to  have  been  called  after 
him,  if  she  had  been  a  boy,  but  being  little  sister  instead, 
she  was  nicknamed  "Bob".  And  when  in  later  years 
she  came  to  California  to  be  married  in  one  of  the 
beautiful  homes  of  Southern  California,  to  a  man  as 
tall  and  handsome  as  herself,  they  built  a  little  dais 
for  Mr.  Burdette  to  stand  on  when  he  performed  the 
ceremony,  that  he  might  be  as  he  said,  "as  high  as  her 
heart". 

There  was  also  named  for  him  a  little  Kiowa 
Indian,  "Robert  Burdette  Spotted  Horse,"  whom 
he  afterwards  helped  to  educate  and  who  wrote  to  him, 

27  417 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

made  bead  hatbands  for  him,  with  Mr.  Burdette's 
name  woven  in  them,  and  sent  him  cards  and  bits  of 
remembrance.  Under  date  of  December  5,  1916,  he 
wrote  me  from  Rainy  Mountain  School: 

GOTEBO,  OKLAHOMA. 

I  am  now  in  the  sixth  grade  in  school  and  I  am  doing  my 
best  and  trying  to  learn.  I  hope  I  will  grow  up  to  be  a  good 
man  and  help  my  people  on  the  Jesus  road,  and  I  will  ask  you 
to  pray  for  me  and  all  the  rest  of  the  children  here  at  the  school 
and  also  the  old  people  at  home — 

Names  of  people  in  general  it  was  difficult  for  him 
to  recall,  but  incidents  and  faces  were  always  "in  the 
pictures"  of  his  memory.  A  remarkable  test  of  this 
was  the  fact  that  while  pastor  of  Temple  Church,  he 
would  stand  at  the  door  after  service  and  greet  the 
immense  congregation  and  there  would  pass  before 
him  strangers  from  all  over  the  United  States.  They 
had  but  to  mention  the  town  or  city  they  came  from 
and  he  would  immediately  recall  some  incident  or 
person  whom  he  saw  when  lecturing  there  many  years 
before. 

He  had  a  retentive  faculty  that  was  the  marvel  of 
all  who  heard  him  lecture,  preach  or  quote  without 
notes  that  which  he  had  written,  passages  of  Scripture 
at  length,  poems  and  standard  authors.  The  following 
from  a  newspaper  will  illustrate: 

Speaking  of  Dr.  Burdette  reminds  me  of  an  occasion  of  those 
old  newspaper  days  that  revealed  an  insight  into  the  humorist's 
memory  that  will  always  cling  to  me. 

It  appears  that  Dr.  Burdette  was  to  be  one  of  the  speakers 
at  a  rally  of  Pasadena  citizens  called  to  discuss  some  phase  of 
city  improvement.  A  platform  was  erected  in  a  lot  on  South 
Fair  Oaks  Avenue,  just  east  of  Colorado. 

I  called  Dr.  Burdette  on  the  telephone  and  asked  him  if  it 
would  be  possible  to  secure  an  advance  copy  of  the  speech  he 
intended  making  that  evening. 
418 


SOME  INTIMATE   PHASES 

"Sure  you  can,  son/'  he  replied  in  that  cheery  manner  of 
his.  "  Just  send  a  messenger  for  it  by  noon  and  I  will  have  it 
all  written  out  for  you." 

Promptly  at  noon  the  messenger  appeared  at  Dr.  Burdette's 
home  on  South  Orange  Grove  Avenue  and  secured  the  manu 
script.  Dr.  Burdette,  the  good  old  soul,  had  typewritten  it 
himself  and  at  various  points  in  the  written  speech  he  had 
inserted  the  words  " applause",  "laughter",  etc.  This  struck 
me  rather  unusual  at  the  time,  so  I  resolved  to  take  the  advance 
copy  of  the  speech  to  the  meeting  and  follow  the  words  of  the 
humorist  to  see  how  correctly  he  had  surmised  the  feelings  of 
the  crowd. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  Dr.  Burdette  did  not  deviate  one 
single  word  from  the  copy  of  his  address,  which  I  had  spread 
out  before  me.  Wherever  the  word  "applause"  occurred  there 
the  audience  applauded.  Wherever  he  had  "laughter"  the 
audience  laughed. 

It  was  not  an  address  he  had  ever  delivered  before.  He 
had  written  it  that  morning  and  yet  he  followed  it  with  a 
fidelity  that  was  positively  marvelous.  It  was  an  insight  into 
the  brilliant  mind  of  the  humorist  that  should  be  recorded 
when  his  biography  is  written.  All  the  world  loved  Bob 
Burdette  and  he  loved  all  the  world. 

The  Holy  Land  fired  his  imagination  as  no  other 
bit  of  country  ever  had  and  his  pen  seemed  dipped  in 
poetry,  beauty  and  reverence.  His  letters  to  his 
father  who  had  always  been  an  ardent  Bible  student, 
were  filled  with  beautiful  detailed  description  and  with 
reference  to  Bible  passages  by  book  and  chapter  and 
verse  illustrating  the  scenes  we  were  visiting.  His 
memory  was  saturated  with  the  Scriptures  and  there 
was  rarely  a  topic  he  approached,  no  matter  what  was 
its  nature,  that  he  did  not  draw  upon  Scripture  for 
text,  topic  or  illustration. 

Years  before,  using  this  same  familiarity  with  and 
memory  of  the  Scriptures,  he  wrote  an  article  concerning 
"Ingersoll's  Creed": 

419 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

With  this  title  some  one  sends  us  a  little  tract,  containing 
epigrammatic  expressions  from  Col.  Robert  G.  Ingersoll's 
latest  lecture,  "What  must  we  do  to  be  saved?"  We  have 
read  the  tract  and  we  have  read  the  entire  lecture.  If  this  is 
truly  Ingersoll's  creed,  the  colonel  isn't  so  far  out  of  the  way. 
He  is  coming  around,  maybe.  He  manages  to  get  considerable 
scripture  into  his  creed,  as  he  sets  it  forth.  There  is  lots  of 
hope,  in  fact  there  is  a  great  deal  of  certainty  for  the  colonel. 
We  subjoin  a  few  articles  of  this  great  man's  creed,  just  to  show 
from  what  book  he  got  his  declaration  of  faith. 

"Honest  industry  is  as  good  as  pious  idleness,"  says  the 
Colonel.  Well,  that's  all  right.  That's  orthodox.  The 
Bible  says  the  same  thing  and  said  it  long  before  the  colonel 
thought  of  it. 

"Faith  without  works  is  dead." 

"  Christ  believed  the  temple  of  God  to  be  the  heart  of  man." 
— Ingersoll. 

Yes,  that's  orthodox,  too.  We  "must  worship  him  in  the 
spirit".  "Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost?" 

"  If  I  go  to  heaven  I  want  to  take  my  reason  with  me." — 
Ingersoll. 

Of  course,  and  so  you  will,  "for  now  we  see  through  a  glass 
darkly;  but  there  face  to  face;  now  I  know  in  part;  but  then 
I  shall  know  even  as  I  am  known." — I  Corinthians,  xiii,  12. 

"Fear  is  a  dagger  with  which  hypocrisy  assassinates  the 
soul." — Ingersoll. 

That  is  good  gospel,  and  "perfect  love  casteth  out  fear". 

"If  I  owe  Smith  ten  dollars,  and  God  forgives  me,  that 
doesn't  pay  Smith." — Ingersoll. 

Correct  you  are;  the  prayer  of  Christianity  is  "forgive  us 
our  debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors  ".  "  Owe  no  man  anything." 

"Reason  is  the  light  of  the  soul,and  if  you  haven't  the  right 
to  follow  it,  what  have  you  the  right  to  follow?" — Ingersoll. 

"Yet  in  the  church  I  had  rather  speak  five  words  with  my 
understanding,  that  by  my  voice  I  might  teach  others  also, 
than  ten  thousand  words  in  an  unknown  tongue.  Brethren, 
be  not  children  in  understanding;  howbeit  in  malice  be  ye 
children,  but  in  understanding,  be  men." — I  Corinthians,  xiv, 
19,20. 

420 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

"  If  you  go  to  hell,  it  will  be  for  not  practicing  the  virtues 
which  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  proclaims." — Ingersoll. 

That's  all  orthodox.  "  If  ye  know  these  things,  happy  are 
ye  if  ye  do  them." 

"  The  men  who  saw  the  miracles  all  died  long  ago.  I  wasn't 
acquainted  with  any  of  'em." — Ingersoll. 

Same  way  with  the  men  who  saw  Servetus  burned.  But 
the  colonel  most  firmly  believes  that  Servetus  was  burned. 

"A  little  miracle  now,  right  here — just  a  little  one — would 
do  more  toward  the  advancement  of  Christianity  than  all  the 
preaching  of  the  last  thirty  years." — Ingersoll. 

"  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they 
be  persuaded  though  one  rose  from  the  dead." — Luke  xvii,  31. 

"If  there  is  a  God  in  the  universe  he  will  not  damn  an 
honest  man." — Ingersoll. 

"A  false  balance  is  an  abomination  unto  the  Lord;  but  a 
just  weight  is  his  delight." — Proverbs,  xi,  1. 

"There  is  only  one  true  worship,  and  that  is  the  practice 
of  justice." — Ingersoll. 

"Render  therefore  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  be  Caesar's 
and  unto  God  the  things  which  be  God's." — Luke  xx,  25. 

"God  will  not  damn  a  good  citizen,  a  good  father,  or  a 
good  friend." — Ingersoll. 

Certainly  not;  nor  any  good  man.  "A  good  man  sheweth 
favour,  and  lendeth;  he  will  guide  his  affairs  with  discretion. 
Surely,  he  shall  not  be  moved  for  ever;  the  righteous  shall  be 
held  in  everlasting  remembrance."— Psalms  cxii,  5, 6. 

"Study  the  religion  of  the  body  in  preference  to  the  religion 
of  the  soul.  A  healthy  body  will  give  a  healthy  mind,  and  a 
healthy  mind  will  destroy  superstition." — Ingersoll. 

That  explains  why  the  Indians  have  no  superstitions. 

"People  who  have  the  smallest  souls,  make  the  most  fuss 
about  saving  them." — Ingersoll. 

Of  course,  Colonel,  they  are  the  hardest  kind  to  save. 

"I  will  never  ask  God  to  treat  me  any  fairer  than  I  treat 
my  fellow  men." — Ingersoll. 

Well,  that's  perfectly  orthodox.  "For  if  ye  forgive  men 
their  trespasses,  your  heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive  you; 
but  if  ye  forgive  not  men  their  trespasses,  neither  will  your 
Father  forgive  your  trespasses."  "For  with  what  judgment 

421 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged;  and  with  what  measure  ye  mete, 
it  shall  be  measured  to  you." 

"  Upon  the  shadowy  shore  of  death,  the  sea  of  trouble  casts 
no  wave." — Ingersoll. 

The  colonel  must  have  been  singing  that  good  old  hymn 
"When  I  can  read  my  title  clear,"  in  which  occur  the  lines: 

"And  not  a  wave  of  trouble  roll 
Across  my  peaceful  breast." 

In  a  response  to  a  request  for  his  favorite  Bible  text 
he  wrote: 

What  is  my  favorite  Text? 

When  the  day  is  raw  and  stormy,  I  want  a  cloak,  warm  and 
storm-proof,  and  I  snuggle  into  it  and  draw  it  around  me  like  a 
"garment  of  praise".  When  the  day  is  bitter  cold,  the  sunny 
side  of  a  great  rock,  with  the  outlook  to  the  south  is  my  favorite, 
and  "the  Rock  that  is  higher  than  I"  is  my  shelter.  When 
the  way  of  the  pilgrimage  is  dusty  and  hot,  I  love  a  shaded  path 
close  beside  the  windings  of  the  river;  I  love  to  hear  the  murmur 
of  "the  fountain  of  living  waters".  When  I  am  hungry,  a  little 
passing  shower  of  manna  pleases  me  as  well  as  any  thing,  with 
the  promise  of  "the  hidden  manna"  in  the  day  of  overcoming. 

When  I  am  filled— "the  full  soul  loatheth  the  honey  comb", 
and  a  little  exercise,  such  as  climbing  the  Hill  Difficulty  or 
running  with  Patience  a  hard  sprint  in  the  race  that  is  set  before 
me  is  good  for  me.  When  I  am  tired,  I  long  for  an  arbor  of 
rest — I  want  to  "lie  down  in  green  pastures",  until  my  soul 
is  restored.  Going  down  the  dangerous  slopes  I  want  a  pil 
grim's  staff  upon  which  to  lean. 

When  there  are  giants  in  the  way,  I  want  a  sword — "  a  right 
Jerusalem  blade",  and  some  One  to  "teach  my  fingers  to  fight". 
Sometimes  I  am  faint  hearted  and  frightened,  then  I  want  a 
trumpet  blast  that  will  stiffen  the  sinews  of  my  soul,  like  the 
trumpets  of  Gideon.  Then  another  day  I  have  fallen  among 
thieves,  I  am  sore  hurt,  and  I  need  words  that  are  healing  balm. 
One  time  I  need  to  be  coaxed ;  the  next  day  I  have  to  be  com 
manded.  Today  I  must  be  restrained  and  feel  the  pull  of  the 
rein  and  the  grip  of  the  curb.  Tomorrow  I  must  have  whip 
and  spur.  On  my  stupid  days  I  must  be  patiently  enlightened — 

422 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

"line  upon  line,  precept  upon  precept".  On  other  days  when 
I  know  too  much,  I  must  be  cautioned  and  reproved.  My 
favorite  text?  Oh,  my  children,  you  might  as  well  ask  me 
which  is  my  favorite  eye.  Whichever  one  I  might  happen  to 
lose,  of  course. 

He  always  found  a  text  in  everything  and  these 
suggestions  he  noted  down  to  use  at  some  future  time. 
For  example,  standing  in  a  Japanese  temple  one  day, 
he  wrote: 

Buddha's  doctrine  of  "The  Path" — our  own  Indian  expres 
sion  "  The  Jesus  Road  ".  That  is  simple  and  plain — it  is  Jesus' 
own  teaching,  "I  am  the  Way". 

Frequently  these  suggestive  notes  were  not  written 
but  he  sketched  with  pen  and  ink  illustrations  of 
thought  which  in  a  few  strokes  visualized  what  it  would 
have  taken  paragraphs  to  have  written. 

One  of  his  assumed  privileges  was  the  coining  of 
words,  which  led  him  to  say: 

I  once  coined  a  name  way  back  in  1876,  for  one  of  my 
so-called  humorous  characters — Bilderback.  I  put  the  Bilder- 
back  family  in  jocose  print  for  several  years.  One  night,  about 
1887,  I  lectured  in  Salem,  N.  J.,  and  told  one  of  my  Bilderback 
stories.  The  audience  was  convulsed  with  more  mirth  than 
the  story  called  for.  After  the  lecture  I  was  introduced  to 
about  a  dozen  Bilderbacks,  who  enjoyed  my  story  more  than 
any  one  else. 

He  had  a  peculiar  intimate  way,  in  his  early  writing, 
of  addressing  advice  to  "My  boy"  or  "My  son"  which 
attracted  and  gripped  the  interest  of  the  young  readers. 

Remember,  son,  [he  wrote]  that  the  world  is  older  than  you 
are  by  several  years;  that  for  thousands  of  years  it  had  been 
so  full  of  smarter  and  better  young  men  than  yourself  that 
their  feet  stuck  out  of  the  dormer  windows;  that  when  they 
died  the  old  globe  went  whirling  on,  and  not  one  man  in  ten 
millions  went  to  the  funeral. 

Don't  be  too  sorry  for  your  father  because  he  knows  so 

423 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

4  kit k<M  6^  / 
TV*  M  A  f»  V  f*.J  US  - 


VIVID  IMPRESSIONS  OF  JAPAN 


424 


SOME   INTIMATE   PHASES 

much  less  than  you  do.  Remember  the  reply  of  Dr.  Wayland 
to  the  student  of  Brown  University  who  said  it  was  an  easy 
enough  thing  to  make  proverbs  such  as  Solomon  wrote.  "  Make 
a  few,"  tersely  replied  the  old  man. 

The  world  has  great  need  of  young  men,  but  no  greater 
than  the  young  men  have  for  it.  Your  clothes  fit  you  better 
than  your  father's  fit  him;  they  cost  more  money,  and  they 
are  more  stylish;  your  mustache  is  neater;  the  cut  of  your 
hair  is  better.  But,  young  man,  the  old  gentleman  gets  the 
biggest  salary,  and  his  homely,  scrambling  signature  on  the 
business  end  of  a  check  will  drain  more  money  out  of  the  bank 
in  five  minutes  than  you  could  get  out  with  a  ream  of  paper 
and  a  copper-plate  signature  in  six  months. 

Again: 

Remember,  my  boy,  the  good  things  in  the  world  are 
always  the  cheapest.  Spring  water  costs  less  than  corn  whiskey ; 
a  box  of  cigars  will  buy  two  or  three  Bibles;  a  gallon  of  old 
brandy  costs  more  than  a  barrel  of  flour;  a  "full  hand"  at 
poker  often  costs  more  in  twenty  minutes  than  a  church  sub 
scription  amounts  to  in  three  years;  a  state  election  costs  more 
than  a  revival  of  religion. 

You  can  sleep  in  church  every  Sunday  morning  for  nothing, 
if  you're  mean  enough  to  deadbeat  your  lodging  that  way,  but 
a  nap  in  a  Pullman  car  costs  you  $2.00  every  time;  50  cents 
for  the  circus,  and  a  penny  for  the  little  ones  to  put  in  the 
missionary  box;  $1.00  for  the  theater,  and  a  pair  of  old  trousers, 
frayed  at  the  end,  baggy  at  the  knees  and  utterly  bursted  as 
to  the  dome,  for  the  Michigan  sufferers. 

The  dancing  lady  who  tries  to  wear  the  skirt  of  her  dress 
under  her  arm  and  the  waist  around  her  knees,  and  kicks  her 
slippers  clear  over  the  orchestra  chair  every  night  gets  $600  a 
week,  and  the  city  missionary  gets  $500  a  year,  the  horse-race 
scoops  $2000  the  first  day,  and  the  church  fair  lasts  a  week, 
works  twenty-five  or  thirty  of  the  best  women  in  America 
nearly  to  death  and  comes  out  $40  in  debt. 

And  again: 

Remember,  my  son,  you  have  to  work.  Whether  you 
handle  a  pick  or  pen,  a  wheelbarrow  or  a  set  of  books,  digging 

425 


ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

ditches  or  editing  a  paper,  ringing  an  auction  bell  or  writing 
funny  things,  you  must  work.  If  you  look  around  you,  you 
will  see  the  men  who  are  most  able  to  live  the  rest  of  their  lives 
without  work  are  the  men  who  work  the  hardest.  Don't  be 
afraid  of  killing  yourself  with  overwork.  It  is  beyond  your 
power  to  do  that  on  the  sunny  side  of  30.  Men  die  sometimes, 
but  it  is  because  they  quit  work  at  6  P.  M.,  and  don't  get  home 
until  2  A.  M.  It  is  the  interval  that  kills  you,  my  son.  The 
work  gives  you  an  appetite  for  your  meals;  it  lends  solidity  to 
your  slumbers;  it  gives  you  a  perfect  and  grateful  appreciation 
of  a  holiday. 

There  are  young  men  who  do  not  work,  but  the  world  is 
not  proud  of  them.  It  does  not  even  know  their  names.  It 
simply  speaks  of  them  as  "so-and-so's  boys".  Nobody  likes 
them.  The  great  busy  world  does  not  know  that  they  are  there. 
So  find  out  what  you  want  to  be  and  do,  and  take  off  your  coat 
and  do  it.  The  busier  you  are,  the  less  harm  you  will  be  apt 
to  get  into,  the  sweeter  will  be  your  sleep,  the  brighter  and 
happier  your  holidays,  and  the  better  satisfied  will  all  the  world 
be  with  you. 

These  illustrate  also  that  his  humor  lay  almost 
wholly  in  his  forms  of  expression  and  in  an  unexpected 
collocation  of  ideas,  the  effect  of  which  upon  the  reader 
or  hearer  was  cumulative.  But  through  it  all,  he 
maintained  that  "humor  is  but  the  garment  of  truth. 
It  is  the  combination  of  philosophy  and  truth  which 
makes  humor.  True  humor  delights  women — buffoon 
ery  shocks  them.  Men  laugh  at  situations — women  at 
sentiments." 

"What's  that,  Dr.  Burdette?"  asked  a  young  man 
in  his  church  study  one  day,  pointing  to  a  colored  litho 
graph  of  a  washerwoman,  framed  and  hung  on  the 
wall. 

"That,  my  boy,  is  an  illustration  that  the  popular  heart 
is  on  the  right  side,"  he  said,  with  a  smile.  "Some  years  ago, 
John  A.  Johnson  was  running  for  governor  of  Minnesota,  and 
426 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

some  one  threw  it  up  to  him  that  his  mother  had  been  a  wash 
woman.  He  admitted  that  she  was,  and  that  he  had  helped 
her,  when  he  was  a  boy.  So  they  made  this  cartoon,  and  called 
it  the  governor  of  Minnesota,  and  the  man  was  elected  by  an 
overwhelming  majority,  on  the  Democratic  ticket,  in  a  Repub 
lican  state." 

"And  what's  that?" 

That,  my  son,  is  the  old  story, '  For  he's  a  jolly  good  fellow'. 
The  young  wife  is  sitting  up  waiting  for  him;  the  clock  points 
to  2  in  the  morning;  she  has  brought  out  his  slippers  and 
dressing  gown,  and  has  fallen  asleep  beside  the  evening  lamp, 
her  head  resting  on  the  table.  That,  my  son,  is  the  strongest, 
briefest  sermon  on  the  drink  problem  preached  in  many  a  day! 
It  is  so  awfully  true  that  it  is  almost  humorous  in  its  ghastly 
reality;  for,  as  I  told  you,  true  humor  is  but  a  foil  to  give  to 
truth  its  true  proportions." 

He  was  often  urged  by  his  literary  intimates  to  write 
more  for  permanent  literature.  Melville  Delancy  Law- 
son  (Eli  Perkins)  wrote  years  ago: 

Before  you  go  away,  Bob,  before  you  are  translated  to 
Moses  and  Elijah  you  ought  to  collect  all  the  best  things  you 
ever  wrote  into  one  or  more  volumes  and  leave  it  to  the  boys 
and  girls  growing  up. 

The  reason  he  did  not  do  this  may  possibly  be  found 
in  a  reply  he  once  made  to  Samuel  L.  Clemens  (Mark 
Twain).  We  visited  them  once  when  they  were  living 
outside  of  London,  and  as  our  two  boys  and  their  two 
daughters  played  tennis,  Mrs.  Clemens  and  I  chatted, 
and  Mr.  Clemens  and  Mr.  Burdette  went  off  into 
another  room  for  a  visit. 

Finally  Mr.  Clemens  said,  "Bob,  do  you  know  what 

a fool  you  have  been  all  your  life".  "Yes,  Mark, 

I  reckon  I  do.  No  one  but  the  dear  Lord  knows  that 
better  than  I  do.  But  in  what  particular  respect  do 
you  mean,  Mark?"  Mr.  Clemens  replied,  "You  have 

427 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

gone  around  the  world  all  these  years  just  lecturing  to 
folks  who  forget  you  tomorrow.  Why  haven't  you 
written  books  and  charged  'em  two  dollars  and  a  half 
apiece  for  them?"  "Well,  I'll  tell  you,  Mark,"  said 
Mr.  Burdette,  "I  suppose  its  because  I  care  more  for 
folks  than  I  do  for  the  two  dollars  and  a  half". 

In  that  you  have  the  key-note  of  his  life. 

While  he  did  not  preserve  his  writings  in  book  form 
to  any  extent,  he  did  the  marvelous  and  unusual  thing 
of  preserving  his  writings  in  a  dozen  scrapbooks  of 
clippings  from  the  Burlington  Hawkeye,  Brooklyn 
Eagle,  Los  Angeles  Times,  and  his  diaries  were  reli 
giously  kept  from  the  beginning  of  his  lecture  career 
up  to  two  weeks  before  he  died,  in  which  are  found 
detailed  accounts  of  every  phase  of  the  activities  which 
crowded  his  life.  These  records  are  greatly  enriched 
by  sketch  and  illustration  with  his  pen,  and  com 
ments  that  run  through  the  full  gamut  of  his  emo 
tions,  his  gifts  and  his  characteristic  outlook  on  life. 

Nothing  was  ever  too  great  for  him  to  undertake 
for  a  friend,  and  yet  it  was  in  little  ways,  little  thought- 
fulnesses,  inexpensive  gifts,  the  helpfulness  that  only 
required  thought,  a  moment  of  time  and  the  loving 
spirit,  by  which  he  endeared  himself  to  the  hosts  of 
people  who  felt  he  was  their  special  friend.  When  in 
Europe  for  a  few  weeks  vacation  he  occupied  his  spare 
moments  in  writing  souvenir  postal  cards  to  members 
of  his  family  and  of  his  church.  He  delighted  500 
people  therewith  one  year,  dipping  his  pen  in  love  as 
he  wrote.  Later  he  said,  "The  only  reason  I  did  not 
write  500  more  is  because  I  did  not  stay  away  long 
enough".  He  passed  his  sixty-third  birthday  while 
away  on  this  trip,  and  solemnly  declared,  "It  shall 
never  occur  again". 

428 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

In  a  desk  basket  was  always  a  department  where  he 
kept  envelopes  addressed  to  some  special  friends.  From 
time  to  time  he  slipped  into  these  envelopes  a  poem, 
a  church  calendar,  a  clipping,  and  finally  a  few  lines 
of  personal  greeting.  One  who  knew  of  this  habit 
could  realize  how  constantly  he  kept  his  friends  in 
mind  and  how  enthroned  they  were  in  his  heart.  As 
a  result  of  these  little  acts  there  grew  up  many  warm 
friendships.  A  copy  of  a  letter  he  wrote  many  years 
ago  came  back  to  him  because  it  was  so  characteristic 
of  his  great  heart: 

IOWA  FALLS,  IOWA. 

To  the  Postmaster:  I  mail  a  pkg  to-night  addressed  to  "the 
Two  Little  Misses  Elliot"  which  is  all  the  address  I  know  for 
them.  They  are  the  two  little  girls  who  sat  on  camp  stools  in 
the  front  of  my  audience  tonight.  Their  mother  is  a  widow  I 
understand.  And  I  know  you  will  oblige  me  by  forwarding 
the  parcel  to  the  children. 

Sincerely  yours, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

and  "the  Two  Little  Misses  Elliot"  were  on  his  mailing 
list  through  all  the  years  and  became  treasured  friends. 
His  friendships  were  not  confined  to  those  of  his  own 
creed  or  political  party.  No  one  could  have  been  more 
solicitous  during  Mr.  Burdette's  illness  than  was 
Bishop  Conaty  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  Los  Angeles  Federation  of  Catholic  Societies, 
who  wrote: 

In  common  with  all  who  know  you,  or  have  heard  of  you, 
whether  members  of  your  own  congregation  or  not,  or  even  of 
our  good  old  Celtic  Club,  I  have  watched  with  anxiety  the 
reports  of  your  illness  and  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  my 
sympathy  and  sincere  hopes  for  your  speedy  restoration  to 
health.  Los  Angeles  can  ill  afford  to  lose  the  services  of  such 

429 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

an  able  champion  of  all  good  causes  and  of  Truth  as  he  sees  it. 
God  have  you  in  his  keeping  and  hasten  your  convalescence  is 
the  prayer  of 

Your  sincere  friend, 

A.  E.  LYNCH. 

His  love  for  humanity  crowned  it  all,  with  a  dis 
tinction  he  made  between  "liking"  and  "loving". 

I  cannot  like  some  men;  their  boorish  ways; 

Their  coarse  vulgarities;  their  love  of  show; 
Their  purse-proud  vanities;  the  shame  of  their  self-praise; 

Their  crying  faults.    But  this  full  well  I  know — 
I  do  not  need  to  "Like"  the  things  that  show  outside, 

But  I  can  "Love"  the  soul  for  which  Christ  died. 

Gregarious  as  his  nature  seemed  to  be,  there  were 
times  when  for  very  weariness  of  spirit  he  sought  soli 
tude  in  a  peculiar  manner,  and  once  he  wrote  of  it: 

Do  you  know,  I  love  to  run  away  from  the  town,  and  get 
away  from  the  people,  the  noisy,  chattering,  talking  people, 
although  I  love  them,  and  stroll  about  in  the  cemetery?  I  like 
to  get  away  from  the  live  men  and  seek  the  companionship  of 
the  dead  ones.  I  believe  I  love  the  dead  people.  It  is  good  to 
stroll  about  among  the  tombstones  and  look  down  upon  the 
graves  of  them  that  sleep.  You  seem  to  catch  some  of  the  sweet 
quiet  of  their  dreamless  repose,  and  as  you  read  their  names 
and  think  of  them  all  this  grim,  nameless  fear  of  death  passes 
away. 

One  day  away  out  in  Blissfield,  Michigan,  I  left  the  little 
town  dozing  away  in  the  early  March  afternoon  and  strolled 
out  to  the  acre  where  the  sleepers  await  the  resurrection  dawn. 
I  glanced  at  the  stones  as  I  passed  along  the  little  mounds  and 
wondered  that  people  should  live  so  long,  for  most  of  them 
seemed  to  have  dropped  to  sleep  in  good  old  age  far  down  the 
quiet  afternoon  of  life,  like  an  old  man  falling  asleep  in  his  arm 
chair  watching  the  fading  sunlight  die  away  and  the  creeping 
shadows  falling  over  his  meadows  and  brown  stubble  fields. 
How  tenderly  you  feel  toward  the  dead  you  have  never  known 
before  as  you  stand  among  them, 

430 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

And  if  trouble  of  any  kind  ever  shadowed  his  heart, 
he  waited  until  night  and  the  stars  came  out  and  he 
walked  out  or  lay  near  a  window  where  he  could  see 
them,  saying: 

The  stars!  God's  own  stars.  Whenever  I  am  troubled 
and  perplexed — when  my  heart  aches  and  my  faith  is  dim  or 
blind,  I  love  to  go  out  and  look  up  at  the  stars.  God's  beautiful 
stars.  And  if  they  are  all  there,  calm,  majestic,  serene,  each 
in  their  place  where  God's  finger  put  them  a  million  years  ago, 
I  say  to  my  bewildered  brain,  or  my  troubled  soul,  "  Be  content. 
He  can  take  care  of  your  little  affairs."  And  the  stars  say  to 
any  storm  that  may  be  raging  in  the  narrow,  shallow  sea  of  my 
little  life,  "Peace,  be  still,"  and  there  comes  a  calm — the 
Wonderful  Stars! 

What  contrasts  life  holds!  In  1863,  writing  of 
"Camp  near  Yazoo  Pass",  Miss.,  to  his  sister,  he 
wrote: 

I  am  sending  $10.00.  Would  send  more  but  I  will  need 
money  around  where  we  are  going  in  case  of  sickness — wounds, 
or  any  other  misfortunes  of  war.  It  is  awful  hot,  though  the 
woods  are  quite  green.  I  found  two  violets  in  the  marsh  which 
I  intended  sending  to  you,  but  they  got  themselves  lost. 

March  8,  1901,  from  Mount  Carmel  in  Palestine, 
he  wrote: 

The  happy  camping  tour  in  Palestine  is  ended.  .  .  .  We 
spent  two  days  at  "Sweet  Galilee"  and  took  a  little  ship  and 
sailed  and  rowed  to  Capernaum;  walked  by  the  Sea  made  for 
ever  sacred  by  the  presence  of  Jesus;  visited  this  part  and 
that;  and  as  we  climbed  the  long  hill  above  Tiberias,  cast 
many  longing  looks  back  to  the  most  beautiful  lake  on  earth. 
.  .  .  This  has  been  to  me  more  than  all  the  rest  of  the  year's 
journeying.  It  has  not  merely  been  a  journey  through  wonder 
ful  places,  but  a  beautiful  ride — nearly  200  miles  through  wild 
flowers.  One  day  at  luncheon,  between  Nain  and  Galilee,  I 
walked  away  from  the  table  about  one  hundred  yards  and 

431 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

came  back  with  thirteen  varieties  of  wild-flowers.     This  land 
is  no  desert. 

Because  of  the  generosity  of  Mr.  Burdette's  nature, 
he  was  the  recipient  of  more  and  varied  requests  for 
assistance  than  it  would  seem  possible  could  be  directed 
to  any  one  man.  These  he  responded  to  through  the 
long  years  of  public  service,  whenever  and  however 
possible.  And  he  had  the  gratification  of  receiving  an 
unexpected  amount  of  appreciation.  Possibly  he 
prized  most  of  all  the  words  of  heartfelt  gratitude 
for  some  act  or  word  of  his  which  had  been  given 
unsolicited.  Some  of  the  appreciative  words  from 
James  Whitcomb  Riley  have  already  been  quoted, 
and  many  more  might  be  added.  Dr.  James  Hedley, 
a  well-known  lecturer,  writing  to  him,  recognized  with 
appreciation  this  kindly  spirit  toward  a  compatriot: 

It  has  been  in  my  heart  for  some  time  to  write  you  a  letter 
of  earnest  thanks  for  the  many  gracious  and  kindly  things  you 
have  said  of  me  and  my  work.  Hither  and  yon,  good  people 
tell  me  of  it.  Bless  your  big  wide  heart,  always  open  and  warm 
as  a  June  day.  It  has  room  in  it  for  every  creature.  Your 
words  and  your  life  are  twins  and  that  is  the  highest  expression 
of  the  character  and  work  of  a  good  man.  I  always  enjoy 
following  you  because  you  leave  a  taste  sweet  as  honey,  in  the 
mouths  of  all  men. 

A  man  employed  in  the  mechanical  department  of 
the  Burlington  Hawkeye,  when  Mr.  Burdette  first  went 
to  the  paper,  treasured  in  his  memory  this  appreciation 
expressed  three  years  after  Mr.  Burdette  passed  on: 

Mr.  Burdette's  writing  in  the  paper,  and  his  personality, 
was  the  greatest  factor  in  the  building  up  of  the  Hawkeye. 
In  Dickens  "Great  Expectations"  there  is  this  paragraph: 
"And  now  the  very  breath  of  the  beans  and  the  clover  whis 
pered  to  my  heart  that  the  day  must  come  when  it  would  be 
432 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

well  for  my  memory  that  others  walking  in  the  sunlight  might 
be  softened  as  they  thought  of  me."  And  I  know  of  nothing 
that  will  better  express  the  feeling  and  sentiment  of  every  man 
that  was  associated  with  him  on  the  Hawkeye  than  that  their 
"hearts  are  softened"  as  they  think  of  him. 

Strickland  Gillilan,  one  of  the  Press  Humorists, 
in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Burdette,  expresses  the  tenderness 
with  which  he  was  held  in  the  hearts  of  the  younger 
generations.  This  is  especially  interesting  because  it 
is  not  only  the  writer's  tribute  but  the  appreciation  of 
the  Press  Humorists  of  America: 

MY  DEAR  BOY: 

There — there,  now.  Don't  think  I'm  flippant  or  fresh. 
I'm  not.  To  me,  and  to  the  other  boys  who  play  about  your 
knees  in  the  fragrant  field  of  humor  and  the  finer  things  (but 
are  there  any  finer  things  than  pure  humor?)  you  will  never  be 
aught  except  that  bigger  boy  who  has  been  further  afield  than 
we.  He  has  been  along  the  path  of  perennial  boyhood  further 
than  we  now  think  we  may  ever  dare  to  go.  He  has  found 
where  the  hornets  have  built  their  nests,  but  he  doesn't  tell  us. 
With  one  of  his  own  twinkling  eyes  carefully  cocked  on  the 
hornet's  gray  nest  he  shows  us,  away  over  yonder,  where  the 
grass  is  softest;  where  the  road  is  smoothest;  where  the  clover- 
blooms  along  the  pathway  are  reddest  and  fullest  of  that  which 
tempts  the  bees. 

And  we  miss  the  hornets — wondering  why,  but  loving  the 
good  big  boy  who  showed  us  where  the  pleasures  were.  Our 
big  boy  friend  has  found  where  the  deepest  and  coolest  and 
sandiest-bottomed  swimming-holes  are,  and  where  it  is  safe  to 
dive  from  a  sycamore  limb;  he  also  knows  where  the  bad  boy 
put  the  thorns  of  honey-locust  in  the  slide.  He  knows  that 
just  after  we  climb  some  of  the  highest  hills  there  is  the  finest 
view  and  the  best  stretches  of  good  going.  That  is  why  he 
smiles  as  he  sees  us  tagging  along  over  those  places — and  we 
smile  because  he  does;  which  makes  the  hard  climbs  easier 
for  us. 

The  big  boy  is  just  now  standing  on  the  top  of  a  ridge  that 

looks  to  us  like  the  summit  of  all  things.     To  him  it  doesn't 

28  433 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

seem  so.  But  he  is  smiling.  As  he  smiles  he  holds  out  his 
strong,  helpful  hand  and  says:  "Come  on,  boys,  come  on. 
This  isn't  the  top  you  think  you're  seeking,  and  I  can't  even 
see  it  from  here.  But  I've  found  out  something  as  I  came 
along,  and  it's  so  good  I  can't  wait  till  you  get  up  to  me  to  tell 
it  to  you.  I've  found  out  that  what  we  think  we're  striving 
for  isn't  it  at  all.  It's  something  infinitely  better,  infinitely 
more  lasting — I  can  see  that  from  here,  but  so  can  you  from 
where  each  of  you  is — by  looking  up". 

He  knows  where  all  the  orchards  are  that  let  some  of  their 
apples  hang  over  the  roadside  fence — and  he  knows  which 
orchard  owners  keep  dogs.  He  knows  the  place  where  he 
slipped  once  and  pretty  nearly  fell,  perhaps,  and  when  he  comes 
to  that  place  he  tells  the  boys  a  tender  story  that  makes  them 
laugh  and  cry  both  at  once  so  that  they  follow  him  around  the 
slippery  spot  without  knowing  they  have  been  led.  He  knows 
all  these  things,  and  the  boys  love  him  for  knowing  them,  and 
are  happier  and  more  hopeful  as  they  say  to  one  another: 
"  See,  he  has  been  along  the  road  further  than  we  and  he  seems 
even  happier  than  when  he  started.  It  is  a  good  road  and  the 
trip  has  paid  him.  He  has  found  more  of  sunshine  than  of 
cloud  in  it.  He  has  found  more  of  gentle  warmth  than  of 
withering  cold  in  it;  he  has  found  more  of  beauty  than  of  ugli 
ness  in  it;  and  the  simple,  artless  joys  of  childhood  that  we 
find  so  sweet  and  have  feared  might  wear  out  and  pall  upon  us, 
are  still  sweet  to  him.  It  is  a  goodly  journey — for  is  not  our 
Big  Brother  evidence  of  it?  ' 

And  we  are  all  happier — much  happier  because  you  have 
lived;  all  the  happier  because,  as  you  have  perhaps  forgotten 
I  told  you  in  your  own  beautiful  home,  you  have  not  played 
the  Merry  Andrew  but  have  reserved  in  your  own  heart  and 
soul  the  right  to  be  serious;  because  you  have  admitted  that 
the  rose  was  inevitably  accompanied  by  the  thorn,  but  have 
ever  insisted  that  the  sweetness  of  the  rose  far  outweighed  the 
sharpness  of  the  thorn.  That's  why  we  love  our  Big  Brother 
and  that's  why  our  lives  are  so  much  brighter  and  our  work 
so  much  easier  from  the  fact  that  he  has  lived. 

So  many  young  men  might  have  duplicated  this 
appreciation.  From  a  young  newspaper  man: 

434 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

Beloved  pastor  and  esteemed  friend,  I  see  from  the  news 
dispatches  that  your  face  is  turned  toward  the  setting  sun,  and 
I  want  to  express  again,  as  I  have  tried  to  from  time  to  time 
in  the  years  past,  my  heartfelt  appreciation  to  you  of  the  chance 
which  you  first  gave  me,  almost  ten  years  ago,  when  I  was 
making  the  hard  and  seemingly  unsuccessful  struggle  for  recog 
nition.  I  feel  now,  as  I  have  always  felt  since  you  in  your 
kindliness  and  love  first  gave  me  my  opportunity,  that  the 
measure  of  success  I  have  attained  has  been  due  entirely  to 
your  friendship  and  aid  at  the  critical  point  in  my  life.  God 
make  happy  and  sunny  the  days  that  bring  you  closer  to  the 
great  river. 

And  this  from  a  man  of  accomplishment: 

The  whirligig  of  time  brings  many  surprises  and  I  know 
that  you  have  not  reached  the  time  when  surprises  are  no 
longer  unexpected  but  I  am  sure  that  you  will  wonder  how  I 
can  possibly  associate  you  with  such  a  work.  Do  you  remember 
(and  of  course  you  cannot,  such  is  the  multitude  of  letters  you 
receive)  having  acknowledged  a  letter  of  appreciation  and 
sympathy  written  in  the  summer  of  1886  from  an  island  in 
Puget  Sound,  by  a  boy  who  was  clearing  a  Government  claim 
and  preparing  himself  for  an  eastern  technical  school?  Your 
letter  in  reply  to  this  boy's  note  is  as  follows: 

MY  DEAR  BOY: 

Many  thanks  for  your  note.  A  word  of  encourage 
ment  heard  in  the  dark,  the  grasp  of  the  hand  of  a  fellow 
pilgrim  whose  face  we  have  never  seen,  comes  like  a  bene 
diction  to  every  man.  This  wonderful  fellowship  makes  us 
all  stronger. 

Thou  therefore,  my  son,  be  strong  in  the  grace  that 
is  in  Christ  Jesus,  for  the  sake  of  the  young  men  whose 
lives  you  influence  by  daily  contact;  and  lean  hard  upon 
the  arm  of  "Him  that  is  able  to  keep  you  from  falling". 
In  Him  alone  we  find  the  strength  and  patience  we  all  need. 
Sincerely  your  friend, 

ROBERT  J.  BURDETTE. 

I  well  remember  the  day  your  letter  came,  and  as  I  look 
at  it  now,  a  mysterious  emanation  from  the  sheet  brings  back 

435 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

the  surroundings  under  which  it  was  first  read.  The  log  cabin 
in  a  clearing,  a  candle  on  a  hewn  table,  and  by  it  a  blue-shirted 
boy  of  17  eagerly  studying  Ganot's  physics,  Ray's  algebra  and 
Otto's  French  grammar.  Home  made  weather  instruments 
were  exposed  and  studied,  and  the  self-imposed  lesson  of  the 
day  tacked  to  the  fir  log  for  contemplation  while  sawing. 
From  that  day,  twenty-six  years  ago,  to  this,  your  letter  has 
been  an  inspiration  to  me,  and  my  studies  in  climatology  have 
been  continued  ever  since  then,  influenced  by  the  friendly 
hand  held  out  at  the  critical  period  of  my  life. 

From  those  whom  he  did  not  know  personally,  there 
came  messages  like  this: 

You  don't  know  me  at  all,  but  I  thank  God  I  know  you  very 
well.  In  fact,  I  have  been  your  friend  for  several  years.  I 
have  heard  you  lecture,  have  frequently  heard  you  preach, 
have  read  your  books  and  newspaper  clippings.  These  have 
been  a  comfort  and  a  joy  to  me  more  than  words  can  tell. 
You  have  done  me  good  all  these  years. 

Walt  Mason,  a  man  known  to  all  newspaper  readers 
today,  wrote  to  me  personally  in  1911 : 

I  hope  your  husband's  health  is  better  than  it  was  a  while 
ago.  I  can't  tell  you  how  much  affection  I  have  for  him, 
although  I  have  never  seen  him.  He  was  the  idol  of  my  boy 
hood.  I  had  a  pretty  hard  time  of  it  then,  working  in  a  woolen 
mill  in  a  dreary  Scotch  village  in  Canada,  and  my  happiest 
hours  were  spent  when  the  weekly  paper  came.  It  always 
contained  some  funny  stories  from  the  Burlington  Hawkeye, 
and  I  used  to  read  them  and  double  up  with  glee,  and  set  the 
house  afire,  and  scalp  the  cat.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  besetting 
sin  of  most  American  humorists  is  a  fondness  for  caustic  sar 
casm.  A  humorist,  above  all  other  men,  should  be  full  of  the 
milk  of  human  kindness.  I  am  glad  that  Bob  went  into  the 
ministry,  and  I  hope  he  says  funny  things  in  church.  I  can 
see  no  reason  why  religion  should  be  the  funereal  thing  so  many 
preachers  make  it.  Give  my  love  to  him. 

And  more  recently,  a  man  who  years  ago  was 
encouraged  by  Mr.  Burdette  to  believe  that  there  was 

436 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

something  better  for  him  than  the  life  of  a  pugilist, 
wrote  to  me  of  the  success  of  his  publication,  and  that 
his  publishers  had  asked  for  another  book,  saying,  he 
knew  how  Dr.  Burdette  would  rejoice  in  it  were  he 
here,  and  he  added,  "God  worked  in  the  snow  when 
he  made  Robert  J.  Burdette — he  was  a  white  man!" 
Very  touching  was  the  appreciation,  the  devotion 
and  affection  of  General  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  owner  and 
editor  of  the  Los  Angeles  Times,  a  man  often  misjudged 
as  to  his  motives  and,  because  of  his  brusque  and  austere 
manners,  believed  to  be  unappreciative  and  unsympa 
thetic.  General  Otis  once  wrote: 

DEAR  MR.  BURDETTE: — You  are  a  lovely  friend,  and  you 
swing  a  lovely  pen,  especially  when  you  are  writing  to  an  old 
friend.  To  be  very  candid  with  you — more  candid  than  I  ever 
was  before  in  my  life — I  am  very  fond  of  you,  and  I  am  a 
profound  admirer  of  your  genius,  your  ability  and  your  capacity 
for  doing  things.  I  appreciate  the  little  letter  which  you  were 
good  enough  to  write  me  with  your  own  hand;  I  appreciate  it 
beyond  expression.  I  express  my  very  sincere  gratification 
over  the  good  opinion  of  the  Times,  and  the  conduct  of  the 
Times,  expressed  by  you,  who  are  so  good  a  judge.  I  some 
times  think,  when  mentally  reviewing  the  past  (which  I  haven't 
time  to  do  very  of  ten) ,  that  I  have  been  abused  a  "leetle"  too 
much — but  maybe  not.  It  is  the  sore  and  serious  misappre 
hension  under  which  so  many  minds  labor  that  is  annoying 
and  maddening.  Misjudgment  is  the  habit  of  so  many  people. 
These  things  do  not  hurt,  save  when  they  take  on  the  form  of 
an  attempted  impeachment  of  my  good  motives,  my  integrity, 
and  my  character  for  patriotism  as  a  citizen,  independence  as 
an  editor,  and  loyalty  as  a  man. 

I  know  you  understand  me,  and  I  bless  you  for  it. 

The  great  battle  in  which  we  have  been  engaged  for  so 
long  a  time,  and  out  of  which  we  are  emerging  triumphant,  was 
a  battle  provocative  in  the  fullest  degree  of  antagonisms— bitter 
industrial,  political,  sectarian,  and  even  personal  antagonisms — 
and  for  this  reason  the  conflict  has  been  fierce,  intense  and 
implacable. 

437 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

My  great  aspiration  is  to  see  the  country  industrially  free; 
to  see  liberty  under  law  prevail  everywhere;  to  see  peace  and 
progress  in  the  industries,  hope  and  prosperity  among  the 
wage  earners,  loyalty  to  the  nation  instead  of  to  the  labor 
lodge,  abundance  of  well-remunerated  employment  for  the 
devotion  to  duty  on  his  part;  comfort,  contentment  and  happi 
ness  in  his  home.  So  may  we,  could  all  these  things  be  achieved, 
attain  a  measure  of  dignity  and  power  of  citizenship  the  like 
of  which  the  world  has  never  yet  seen.  Then  what  a  country 
America  would  be!  It  is  the  misapprehension  of  these  motives 
of  mine  on  the  part  of  so  many  men — good  men — not  confined  to 
trades  union  circles  by  any  means — that  makes  me  feel  the 
injustice  and  makes  my  task  so  much  the  harder. 

But  while  God  gives  me  life,  I  will  go  on  with  my  work 
and  perform  my  self-imposed  task  as  best  I  can.  I  will  stand 
by  the  flag,  swear  by  it,  and  if  need  be  die  for  it. 

But  all  this  is  more  or  less  "shop"  talk,  when  I  am  really 
not  in  the  mood  to  talk  shop,  but  am  choke  full  of  sentiment, 
as  you  have  sometimes  suspected,  and  that  sentiment  has  been 
freshly  aroused  by  your  beautiful  letter. 

Believe  me,  dear  Mr.  Burdette, 

Very  truly  and  affectionately  your  friend, 

HARRISON  GRAY  OTIS. 

And  after  the  dynamiting  of  the  Times  Building, 
Mr.  Burdette  received  this  expression: 

It  does  not  become  a  manly  man,  a  brave  man,  or  a  Chris 
tian  to  boast  that  his  life  is  at  any  time  entirely  outside  of  the 
danger  zone;  nevertheless,  I  almost  believe  that,  in  my  own 
case,  the  dynamite  bomb  has  not  been  manufactured  which 
is  destined  to  end  my  life.  More  than  one  bomb  may  be 
intended  for  that  purpose,  but  destination  is  a  word  of  different 
meaning  in  this  conjunction.  So  that  I  do  not  think  it  is 
irreverent  or  impious  in  me  to  hold  to  the  belief  here  indicated. 
I  shall,  in  any  event,  endeavor  to  adhere  to  my  motto,  "The 
battle  goes  on." 

Thanking  you  profoundly  for  your  good  will,  your  friend 
ship  and  blessed  prayers  in  my  behalf,  I  remain, 
Gratefully,  your  friend, 

HARRISON  GRAY  OTIS. 
438 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

The  friend  was  justified  who  once  wrote  of  him: 

He  lays  the  rough  roads  of  purest  nature  even 
And  opens  in  each  heart  a  little  heaven. 

As  one  re-reads  his  letters  to  friends,  there  is  so  much 
of  vivid  personality  in  them,  so  much  of  friendliness  and 
caring,  you  feel  as  if  the  mail  had  just  come  in  bearing 
these  messages.  This  is  strikingly  true  of  letters  to  the 
immediate  family.  With  infinite  pains,  he  wrote  them 
long  letters  during  the  lecture  season  concerning  his 
engagements.  And  this  was  done  in  face  of  the  fact 
that  his  engagements  were  usually  six  a  week  in  six 
different  towns  or  cities,  with  railroad  travel  between. 
One  letter  to  his  sister  Molly  consisted  of — 

Just  a  breathless  minute  between  minutes  to  send  a  Mon 
day  morning  kiss  which  isn't  so  frosty  as  it  is  sudden. 

To  his  sister,  whose  son  Fred  was  about  to  be  mar 
ried,  he  wrote  from  Vienna: 

Old  age  is  coming  to  me  with  multiplied  blessings  as  our 
boys  and  girls  bring  new  nieces  and  nephews  into  the  widening 
circle.  Well,  love  grows  with  its  own  life — the  more  we  have 
to  love,  the  more  we  love  each  other.  And  there  is  a  big  place 
and  a  warm  one  in  my  heart  already  for  Fred's  wife.  She  is  the 
best  girl  on  earth  and  I  can  prove  it  by  Fred  himself. 

The  tender  solicitude  toward  his  loved  ones  so 
apparent  in  his  early  years,  which  indexed  his  character 
and  endeared  him  to  his  world  of  readers,  was  repeated 
to  my  mother,  when  in  advancing  years  she  became 
an  invalid.  He  wrote  her  frequently  entertaining  let 
ters  that  greatly  cheered  her  on  her  way: 

DEAR  MUNNIE: — We  are  happy  as  ever,  and  just  as  busy 
as  ever.  Busier,  I  sometimes  think.  Clara  has  no  time  at  all 
at  home;  her  desk  is  overflowing  with  business  demands.  I 
am  not  quite  so  overwhelmed  because  a  great  deal  of  my  corre- 

439 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

spondence  can  wait  until  after  I  am  dead,  before  being  answered. 
Last  Sunday  I  preached  in  Temple  Church  twice.  But  Dr. 
Eversole  says  that  was  the  last  time,  and  that  I  must  not 
preach  but  once  a  Sunday  after  that.  And  I  obey  him.  I 
find  that  I  am  more  apt  to  be  obedient  to  my  guardians  than 
I  used  to  be.  Like  all  people  who  are  growing  old,  I  am 

A  little  more  tired  at  close  of  day; 
A  little  less  anxious  to  have  my  way; 
A  little  less  ready  to  scold  and  blame; 
A  little  more  care  for  another's  name; 
A  broader  view  and  a  saner  mind; 
A  little  more  love  for  all  mankind ; 
A  little  more  charity  in  my  views; 
A  little  less  thirst  for  the  daily  news; 
A  little  more  leisure  to  sit  and  dream; 
A  little  more  real  the  things  unseen — 
And  so  I  am  faring  a-down  the  way 
That  leads  to  the  gates  of  the  better  day. 

Monday  night  I  went  in  to  Los  Angeles,  a  guest  at  a  banquet 
given  to  John,  Cardinal  Farley,  by  the  Newman  Club,  the  Roman 
Catholic  club  of  Los  Angeles.  I  believe  I  was  the  only  protes- 
tant  clergyman  invited.  Great  banquet;  lot  of  speeches;  good 
things  to  eat. 

Tuesday  was  our  day  at  home,  as  usual,  and  we  remained 
in  Sunnycrest  to  receive  our  guests.  Wednesday  we  went  in 
to  Los  Angeles  early,  for  that  is  our  regular  weekly  day  in  the 
city.  The  last  time  before  this  that  I  was  in  a  cyclone,  was 
on  the  night  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  1876,  in  Burlington,  Iowa, 
when  I  had  the  entire  roof  of  my  house  blown  into  the  Missis 
sippi  river,  a  mile  away,  all  my  windows  smashed  and  my  stable 
demolished.  But  this  day  in  town,  trying  to  keep  up  with 
Clara,  was  something  like  it,  only  there  wasn't  so  much  property 
destroyed.  But  we  went  to  bed  at  8  o'clock  that  night  and 
got  up  at  8  o'clock  the  next  morning,  still  tired  and  sleepy. 
Your  daughter  is  a  dear,  good,  sweet  girl,  but  she  is  mighty 
hard  to  follow  over  the  hurdles. 

Saturday  I  made  a  speech  at  the  dinner  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  in  Pasadena,  and  "made  'em  holler".  Violet  had  a 

440 


SOME   INTIMATE   PHASES 

couple  of  committee  meetings,  and  I  think  a  meeting  of  the 
hospital  board.  Friday  I  addressed  the  students  of  Occidental 
College,  and  in  the  afternoon  we  went  into  the  city.  Saturday, 
as  you  see  by  the  enclosed  programme,  we  went  to  the  "  Ground 
Breaking  for  the  Southwest  Museum"  and  Clara  made  the 
star  speech  of  the  occasion,  and  with  Miss  Fremont  and  General 
Chaff ee,  Bishop  Conaty  and  other  dignitaries,  shoveled  the 
dirt  that  begins  the  excavation  for  the  foundation  of  the  build 
ing.  This  morning  Roy  came  out  home  and  we  went  to  the 
Presbyterian  church  and  then  brought  Roy  home  to  dinner. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  over  to  the  Stoughtons,  took 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stoughton  in  the  car  and  all  went  into  Los 
Angeles,  to  the  Columbia  Hospital  to  see  Helen  and  the  baby — 
little  "  Clara  Bradley  Wheeler  ".  That  is  the  little  lady's  name, 
chosen  by  that  blessed  Helen.  It  is  a  name  most  appropriate 
as  well  as  pretty.  That  was  Roy's  mother's  name;  it  was 
Clara's  name  when  I  first  met  her,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  have  it 
reappear  in  the  third  generation.  Baby  and  mother  are  getting 
along  splendidly.  Little  Clara  is  the  sweetest,  prettiest  little 
baby  I  ever  saw.  I  have  a  great  deal  more  share  and  credit 
in  her  than  I  am  entitled  to.  Helen  says  nobody  calls  it  her 
baby;  the  other  day  two  persons  came  to  the  hospital  and 
asked  permission  to  see  "Doctor  Burdette's  granddaughter". 
Everything  comes  to  him  who  hath. 

Roy  is  a  great  big  husky  fellow  weighing  170  pounds,  and 
as  handsome  as  he  is  big,  as  smart  and  capable  as  he  is  hand 
some,  and  as  good  as  he  is  all  three  put  together. 

So  runs  the  world  away.  This  week  will  be  as  busy  as  the 
last.  I  don't  wish  we  had  any  fewer  friends,  but  it  would  be 
pleasant  if  they  made  fewer  demands  upon  us.  All  this  cata 
logue  of  our  doings  does  not  include  Clara's  committees  and 
boards,  nor  any  of  her  social  functions.  But  we  all  keep  well 
under  all  the  pressure,  and  hope  for  easier  days  to  come. 

This  he  signed,  "Your  affectionate  grandson",  and 
then  he  added  the  postscript: 

See  there,  now!  We're  all  crazy  over  being  grandparents. 
I  can't  think  that  anything  but  a  grandson  is  worth  while.  And 
how  do  you  feel  since  you  became  a  great-grandmother. 

441 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

Among  the  latest  letters  to  his  relatives  was  one  to 
his  sister  Jo: 

Things  are  moving  about  as  usual  out  here.  Clara  is  buoy 
antly  well,  and  busy,  for  she  has  her  hands  full  of  a  sick  old 
husband,  but  she  is  the  sweetest,  tenderest,  patientest  nurse  on 
earth,  and  would  make  sickness  a  blessing  if  an  arch-angel 
could  do  that.  I  don't  seem  to  be  getting  better  very  fast. 
There  has  been  some  talk  by  the  doctors  of  taking  me  apart 
to  see  what  makes  me  act  that  way.  I  have  the  sublimest 
confidence  in  the  ability  of  the  Medicine  Men  to  take  me  to 
pieces.  But  I  am  a  little  doubtful  of  their  skill  in  putting  me 
together  again.  They  sit  in  consultation  on  me  Saturday 
morning,  after  which  I  will  know  more  about  myself  than  I 
do  now,  or  less. 

Rob  has  changed  papers,  leaving  the  Deseret  News  and  going 
on  another  afternoon  paper,  the  Telegram.  I  am  a  little  sorry 
for  it,  because  the  News  is  a  rich  paper,  and  has  the  reputation 
of  never  discharging  a  faithful  employe  but  keeping  him  on  to 
pension  age — something  rather  unusual  in  the  newspaper 
business.  However,  Robin  is  on  the  ground  and  understands 
his  own  business  better  than  I  can  at  this  distance.  He  is 
getting  too  far  along  in  years,  however,  to  do  much  more 
changing  around.  It  keeps  a  man  at  the  foot  of  the  payroll 
and  the  bottom  of  the  promotion  list  all  the  time. 

Roy,  my  son,  always  had  the  place  of  a  real  son  in 
his  heart,  and  there  was  genuine  comradery  between 
them.  In  Boston,  he  wrote  him  in  1911: 

MY  DEAR  BOY:  Yesterday  I  went  out  to  the  National  Park 
and  saw  New  York  wallop  Boston  in  fine  style  up  to  the  fateful 
ninth  inning,  5-3,  when,  on  the  second  half,  nobody  on  the 
sacks,  two  balls  and  three  strikes  and  nobody  out,  Ames,  p. 
for  N.  Y.,  suddenly  lost  control  of  his  steering  gear  and  the 
Beaneaters  clouted  out  3  runs  and  the  Giants  stampeded  for 
the  dressing  room.  It  was  a  great  game  of  good  ball  and  the 
only  fly  in  my  cake  was  not  having  my  boy  alongside  to  help 
me  take  the  highest  vocal  hurdles.  Muwer,  strangely  and 
coldly  indifferent  to  this  best  Boston  culture  and  refined  art 
442 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

would  not  go  to  the  game,  but  I  took  her  to  "The  Pops"  at 
night. 

Say,  I  heard  our  old  friend,  William  Henry  Tell,  by  an 
orchestra  of  55  pieces.  Did  they  tear  it  off?  They  made  a 
paper  snow  storm  of  it.  "Hoffman's  Love  Tales"  for  an 
encore. 

I  am  feeling  jolly  well  and  good.  Lots  of  love  from  both 
of  us.  Carry  our  greeting  to  Helen  of  Pasadena  should  you 
chance  to  see  her  to-morrow,  whilk  bein'  The  Sawbbath  day 
ye  will  nae  doot  hae  a  crack  i  the  kirk  yard. 

Affectionately,  DADDY. 

The  friendship  between  them  was  very  close  and 
tender  and  he  seemed  to  have  been  the  last  person 
"Daddy"  recognized  before  his  final  sleep.  A  week 
before  he  passed,  when  he  revived  from  the  state  of 
coma  for  a  brief  moment,  he  looked  up  into  Roy's  face 
and  whispered  softly,  "Oh,  Roy,  Oh,  my  Boy,"  with  a 
tenderness  of  meaning  that  life  nor  death  can  ever 
obliterate  from  precious  memory. 

It  is  impossible  for  me  to  reveal  to  the  reading 
public  the  many  expressions  of  affection,  devotion  and 
reverence  which  his  letters  contained  before  and  after 
marriage,  or  to  recite  the  various  ingenious  ways  in 
which  he  daily  delighted  himself  and  me  by  surprised 
suggestions  of  his  hourly  thought  of  our  life  together. 
In  a  letter  just  before  our  marriage,  written  from  Wis 
consin,  where  our  early  friendship  began,  he  wrote* 

Appleton,  with  its  sweet  old  memories,  dear,  dear  sweet 
friend,  for  you  and  I  were  only  friends  then,  true  and  warm 
hearted  friends,  happy  in  the  morning  land,  joyous  in  the 
loves  that  reigned  in  our  hearts;  love  so  perfect  in  its  happiness 
that  it  gladly  made  place  by  its  side  for  new  friendships.  How 
little  did  we  dream  that  the  coming  years  would  make  that 
love  something  as  holy  and  sacred  as  religion  and  ripen  that 
friendship  into  love.  Again  we  met,  and  again  one  summer 
afternoon  at  Winona  Lake — your  baby  was  in  your  arms;  the 
mother  beauty  on  your  face  and  the  mother  love  in  your 

443 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

beautiful  eyes.  You  have  forgotten,  because  to  your  heart  it 
seemed  a  little  thing,  but  I  never  have — how  gentle  and  sweet 
you  were  to  my  motherless  little  boy  who  came  to  your  tent 
with  me.  How  different  is  all  the  world  of  today  from  what 
we  then  dreamed  it  would  be.  Good-night  my  dear  sweet 
friend  of  yesterday— my  sweetheart  of  today.  God  keep  you 
safe  through  all  the  night,  and  God  bless  with  all  tenderness 
and  all  grace  of  purity  and  sweetness  the  love  that  knits 
together  our  thoughts  and  lives. 

Again,  his  poetical  imaginative  nature  is  revealed  in 
a  letter  from  Eau  Claire,  where  we  first  met  in  a  pulpit 
where  he  was  to  preach  one  Sunday  night,  and  I  was 
asked  to  read  the  hymns.  He  used  to  tell  of  this 
instance,  saying  he  did  not  exactly  see  the  need  "of  a 
lady  to  read  hymns  before  I  should  preach,  but  when 
I  heard  the  first  lines  read,  I  was  thrilled  with  the  most 
musical  voice  I  had  ever  heard,  and  the  memory  of  it 
never  left  me".  So  in  1898  he  wrote  from  there: 

A  thousand  sweet  and  tender  memories  sweep  over  my  soul 
as  the  train  waits  here  this  winter  morning.  I  look  down  at 
the  many-spired  little  city,  the  bridges  lacing  the  river  with 
their  open  frames,  the  browns  of  the  dead  oak  leaves  filling 
in  like  shadows  on  the  white  snow — the  long  sluices  with  great 
icicles  pendant  from  them — the  stretching  acres  of  lumber  piles 
on  the  river  bank.  Oh,  my  sweet  dear  friend,  in  those  old  days 
when  friendship  blossomed  in  an  hour  to  ripen  into  the  sun- 
kissed  fruitage  of  love,  ardent,  pure,  tender,  after  many  years, 
as  you  read  this  your  thoughts  are  my  own  thoughts.  I  wonder, 
Violet  dear,  if  my  mind  so  often  going  back  to  our  first  meeting, 
unconsciously  ran  farther  back  than  that,  for  there  is  so  wrought 
into  my  thought  of  you  this  half-waking,  half-dreaming  im 
pression  that  you  I  knew  when  you  were  a  little  girl.  For  you 
know,  I  have  always  had  that  half  feeling  of  a  boy's  acquaint 
ance  with  you,  but  not  of  playmates,  exactly;  I  have  never 
lost  the  sense  of  the  difference  between  our  ages,  so  in  those 
days  I  was  a  very  big  boy  of  21  to  the  little  10  year  old  girl, 
quite  a  young  man  indeed,  I  was.  But  I  was  very  fond  of  you, 
do  you  remember,  and  I  loved  your  merry,  light-hearted  romp- 
444 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

ing  ways  and  your  quiet  loving  ways,  and  your  child  caress. 
Very  tenderly  all  these  things  came  into  my  thought  as  the 
train  waited  at  Eau  Claire,  a  little  while  ago,  and  the  City 
passed  slowly  out  of  the  range  of  my  vision,  as  though  I  had 
awakened  from  a  sweet  dream  of  Eau  Claire  and  Clara  B. 
Wheeler.  For  the  young  professor  came  into  the  picture  too. 
Rightly  did  you  say  to  me,  "You  can  never  be  jealous  of  him, 
Rob."  Never,  for  the  least  shadowy  fleeting  moment.  Alway 
and  often  and  lovingly  as  you  will,  you  may  talk  of  him,  and 
like  one  thought  our  hearts  will  pay  tender  homage  to  the 
memory  of  a  pure,  noble  life,  that  went  out  with  the  morning 
tide. 

It  has  begun  to  snow  again  and  the  white  flakes  sweep 
through  the  trees  and  over  the  farms  like  a  winter  mist.  Every 
where  in  this  enchanted  Eau  Claire  land,  the  snow.  The  low 
graceful  slope  of  the  hills  lie  before  me  like  your  dear  life — 
pure,  gentle,  beautiful.  The  sweet  white  snow!  How  it  beau 
tifies  everything  it  touches.  City  street  and  fallow  field, 
thatched  cottage  and  towered  mansion — it  gives  the  same  touch 
of  beauty  to  all  of  them.  So  God's  loving  mercy  covers  the 
yesterdays  where  raged  and  stormed  and  fought  the  fiery  pas 
sions,  and  vaunting  temptations,  and  fierce  appetites  of  men, 
with  all  their  pride  and  hopes,  and  ambitions.  God  be  merciful 
to  them.  God  pity  my  Yesterdays  and  hold  all  my  To-morrows 
in  loving  and  wise  and  mighty  hands  for  me.  My  To-morrows! 
Beautiful,  and  sweet,  and  good  and  pure  they  will  be,  for  you 
will  be  in  them.  God  keep  you  safe! 

During  the  long  years  of  our  correspondence  many 
were  the  single  verses  and  poems  written  incisted  in  the 
hearts  of  letters,  but  perhaps  it  would  not  be  amiss  to 
give  to  the  public  one  which  came  shortly  before  our 
marriage: 

CLARA 

When  I  shall  see  My  Lady  face  to  face — 

Dear  face — as  calm  and  gracious  as  the  dawn; 
When  with  glad  eyes  in  sweet  content  I  trace 

The  beauty  that  my  love-lit  dreams  have  drawn — 
My  Lady's  face! 

445 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

When  I  can  look  into  My  Lady's  eyes, 

Starlit  and  tender  with  love-radiant  gleams; 

And  see  in  them — more  deep  than  summer  skies — 
The  Look  of  Looks  that  blessed  my  waking  dreams — 
My  Lady's  eyes! 

When  I  will  hold  My  Lady's  hands  in  mine — 
Fair  hands,  that  gently  hold  my  captive  heart — 

When  'round  them  both  mine  own  shall  closely  twine 
In  such  a  clasp  that  time  nor  fate  can  part — 
My  Lady's  hands! 

What  can  I  do,  when  at  her  feet  I  kneel? 

My  eager  lips,  thrilled  with  impetuous  speech, 
Will  dumbly  falter,  as  the  heart  will  feel 

More  than  earth's  loudest  eloquence  can  teach! 
My  Lady — Mine. 

Your  lover, 

ROBERT. 
Once  he  wrote: 

We  are  two  noon-day  lovers.  Maybe  that  is  the  reason 
why  there  has  been  so  much  sunshine  in  it  all  dear.  The 
shadows  are  shortest  at  noon-tide  you  know,  and  softest  and 
tenderest  and  sweetest  in  the  afternoon.  God  grant  it  shall 
be  so. 

That  it  was  granted  so,  he  recorded  in  his  Diary 
when  we  were  in  Venice  some  years  later. 

This  afternoon  we  rowed  out  on  the  Giudecca  and  watched 
the  sunset  by  moonlight— a  beautiful  effect,  and  rowed  home 
through  the  picturesque  Italian  shipping  in  the  darkening 
twilight— just  we  two — gray-haired  lover  and  brown-haired 
sweetheart. 

Many  were  the  incidents  of  the  years,  the  memory 
of  which  bring  back  the  smile.  One  day  a  letter  came, 
containing  a  check  addressed  to  him,  but  intended  for 
me.  I  found  it  on  my  desk  with  this  notation  on  the 
446 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

envelope  in  red  ink,  "Opened  by  mistake  by  your 
needy,  impecunious  but  admiring  husband",  and  inside 
this  parody: 

And  be  these  juggling  business-fiends  no  more  believed 

That  palter  with  us  in  a  double  sense; 
That  write  the  word  of  promise  on  the  envelope's  address, 

And  break  it  in  the  check. 

MIKE  BETH. 

While  attending  a  National  Convention  of  Women's 
Clubs  with  me,  he  hung  a  card  on  the  outside  of  our 
door:  "Madam  the  President  is  out  but  the  Office  Cat 
is  in,  come  right  in, "  and  afterward  he  said  to  a  reporter: 

Yes,  Mrs.  Burdette  was  with  the  California  delegation  and 
I  was  errand  boy.  I  kept  the  door-knob  polished,  took  in  the 
regrets  of  those  who  could  not  come,  received  the  guests  and 
performed  various  other  duties.  I  had  a  good  time  and  I 
never  had  that  at  any  of  the  men's  conventions  I  ever  attended. 

From  that  Convention,  I  went  with  him  to  the 
National  Republican  Convention  at  Philadelphia,  "  just 
to  show/'  as  he  said,  "what  real  team  work  is".  So, 
often  we  spoke  from  the  same  platform  at  his  insistence, 
especially  before  schools,  because,  he  urged : 

No  finer  illustration  can  be  given  the  young  people  in  this 
age  of  domestic  differences  that  it  is  possible  for  husband  and 
wife  to  be  vitally  interested  in  life  and  devotedly  interested  in 
each  other  at  the  same  time. 

He  took  great  joy  in  surprising  me  by  some  little 
gift — a  verse  written  out  and  pinned  on  my  pillow,  a 
little  book  laid  at  my  plate  and  "in  all  the  little  ways 
that  love  creates".  When  away  from  home  he  wrote 
to  my  dressmaker: 

I  want  to  surprise  Mrs.  Burdette  with  such  an  Easter 
present  as  no  one  but  you  can  design  for  her.  I  want  a  white 

447 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

gown — she  is  lovelier  than  a  dream  in  white — in  some  soft  look 
ing  stuff.  I  think  it  is  "Nun's  veilinr  "  or  something  of  that 
sort.  I  want  it  beautifully  plain — exquisitely  simple — some 
thing  she  can  wear  about  the  house  just  for  me — and  yet  it 
must  do  for  a  simple  evening  at  home  ^or  friends  who  "just 
drip  in" — nothing  formal,  you  know.  She  has  plenty  of 
elaborate — ornate — dinner  and  reception  gowns.  I  know  you 
will  understand  what  I  want.  And  Madame  My  Lady  must 
know  nothing  about  it  until  she  opens  the  box. 

And  when  it  arrived  he  took  a  hurried  moment  in 
which  to  write: 

MY  gown  came  in  ample  time — and  it  is  lovely  as  a  violet. 
And  "She"  looked  lovelier  in  it  than  a  June  morning.  And 
wasn't  My  Lady  delighted !  AND  SURPRISED !  !  And  didn't 
I  get  a  BIG  ONE!  !  !  What  a  joy  it  must  be  to  you  just  to 
create  such  a  vision  of  loveliness. 

He  seemed  never  to  read  a  book  or  a  magazine 
without  having  me  in  mind,  making  marginal  notes  and 
interlining  comments  for  me  to  see  later.  When  reading 
"John  Percyfield",  he  underlined  this  sentence:  "To 
believe  in  excellence  is  to  be  an  aristocrat, "  and  wrote  in 
pencil  (You  dear) :  "To  believe  in  it  for  all  people  is  to 
be  a  democrat,"  and  followed  it  with  the  penciled 
"me",  showing  he  felt  himself  to  possess  the  true  spirit 
of  democracy,  desiring  the  utmost  measure  of  individual 
good  for  all. 

To  one  of  his  sons  he  wrote: 

We  are  all  just  as  busy  as  ever.  The  past  week  has  been  a 
cyclone.  I  have  spent  most  of  it  trying  to  follow  Muvver  over 
the  jumps  and  across  the  ploughed  fields,  and  if  I  ain't  knee 
sprung  with  sprained  pasterns  and  wind  galls,  I  must  be  a 
mountain  goat. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  it  was  not  so  difficult 
for  us  to  walk  side  by  side,  for  he  wrote  to  my  son  from 
Honolulu: 

448 


SOME   INTIMATE   PHASES 

Dear  Little  Mama  doesn't  rally  from  the  lassitude  so  well 
as  I  would  like.  She  wearies  easily  tho  she  looks  well  as  she 
always  does.  This  morning  in  the  little  pink  house  gown  and 
the  daintiest  pink  bow  at  her  baby-throat  and  the  carnation 
pinks  in  her  cheeks,  she  was  a  Pasadena  rose-bud  to  make  her 
husband  fall  in  love  with  her  over  again,  every  time  he  looks 
at  her. 

The  recovery  of  speed  is  referred  to  later  in  a  letter 
from  Japan  to  his  sister  Jo. 

About  four  mornings  in  the  week,  I  have  a  newspaper 
letter  of  from  1200  to  1500  words  to  write,  and  the  rest  of  the 
time  I  am  trying  to  keep  up  with  my  little  wife.  And  I  could 
do  it  easy  enough  if  I  could  trade  my  boots  for  a  pair  of  wings. 

When  I  had  gone  to  the  sea  coast  once  for  a  Httle 
rest,  he  sent  me  this  solicitous  note: 

I  hope  you  go  to  bed  early  and  get  up  late  and  have  break 
fast  in  bed.  Do  get  a  little  rest  dear.  This  life  of  ours  is  killing 
home  life,  social  life,  and  reflective  life,  and  giving  us  only 
strain  and  stress — the  wear  of  nerves — and  the  waste  of  brain 
and  heart.  Let's  cut  out  a  lot  of  it.  I  am  beginning  to  think 
we  have  had  about  honors  enough,  when  we  sit  down  and  count 
the  cost  of  them. 

In  June  of  1914,  we  were  separated  two  weeks  and  a 
half  at  his  earnest  solicitation.  I  went  for  a  little  rest 
to  a  convention,  and  his  letters,  which  were  to  be  his 
last  to  me,  were  written  with  all  the  ardor  and  tender 
ness  and  endearment  of  a  youthful  lover.  The  heart 
of  him  never  grew  too  old  for  intense  loving,  though 
the  physical  weakened  under  illness  and  the  years. 
From  one  of  these  letters  I  quote: 

The  enthusiasm  of  this  last  letter  of  yours  is  contagious, 
and  Oh  I  am  glad,  glad,  so  glad  you  are  "  there ".  So  glad  I 
almost  forced  you  to  go;  so  glad  I  have  that  much  portion  in 
your  happiness  and  benefit.  I  just  love  to  think  of  you  in 
the  heart  of  the  Federation,  in  the  life  of  those  splendid  women 

29  449 


* 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

who  made  the  Federation  what  it  is,  for  it  is  goddess-born. 
You  will  write  a  sketch  of  its  birth  sometime  and  embalm  the 
names  of  the  immortals  who  were  its  sponsors. 

I  went  out  to  Ardmore  [my  son's  home]  and  had  a  cheery- 
visit  of  an  hour  and  a  half.  Roy  got  up  early  last  Sunday 
morning  in  order  to  take  care  of  his  little  daughter  all  day. 
ALL  DAY.  All  Day,  Yes.  That's  what  I  said— ALL  DAY. 
Blossom  said  he  worked  like  a  little  man.  Your  granddaughter, 
greatly  encouraged  by  this  unexpected  reinforcement  to  the 
nursing  force,  exerted  herself  to  her  utmost.  She  hung  out 
the  banner — "We  aim  to  please,"  and  invented  new  games  and 
athletic  plays  every  minute.  When  11  o'clock  came  at  last 
and  the  nurse  led  her  away  to  "Numa"  and  beddie,  Roy  fell 
fainting  on  the  couch  in  the  library  and  turned  to  Blossom 
saying  faintly — "Good  Lord!  Does  she  keep  that  up  all  day 
and  every  day?" 

Wasn't  that  delicious? 

She  was  in  the  same  humor  yesterday.  She  showed  me 
her  latest  accomplishment.  She  stood  before  me,  and  gravely 
gathered  up  her  little  skirt,  and  BOWED!  Then  she  said 
"Butterfly"  without  any  qualifying  phrase. 

And  this,  the  last  letter  entrusted  to  the  mails: 

Sunday,  June  20th,  1914. 

This  is  the  home  day  and  you  are  just  a  little  bit  closer 
to  me  than  ever,  for  it  is  our  day.  I  dream  of  you,  think  of 
you,  long  for  you,  and  thank  the  dear  Heavenly  Father  for 
every  memory  of  you.  So  dear,  so  sweet,  so  helpful  you  had 
been  and  you  are  to  me.  The  day  is  tender  with  its  thoughts 
of  you.  The  waking  hours  that  sometimes  come  to  make  the 
night  long,  no  longer  come  with  dread  and  with  tossings,  for 
you  come  with  them,  making  them  gentle  with  caresses;  with 
memories  of  tenderness;  with  whispers  of  courage  and  hope 
with  words  of  love;  with  all  that  you  have  been  and  are.  A 
host  of  angels  come  with  your  face — Love,  Hope,  Promise,  Joy. 
The  sun  is  slowly  sinking  to  the  hills  that  look  down  at  Sunny- 
crest,  and  I  have  just  been  watching  it  from  the  windows  of 
your  little  room  above  the  western  porch,  dreaming  that  you 
are  standing  beside  me. 
450 


SOME  INTIMATE  PHASES 

Good-night  then,  my  precious  wife.  Bend  down  over  me 
for  a  little  minute  while  your  kiss  and  your  caressing  arms 
whisper  your  Benediction  on  my  lips  and  my  heart.  God 
bless  and  keep  you. 

And  this  was  the  written  benediction  he  left  on  my 
life.  The  spoken  benediction,  when  after  a  most 
tender  and  appreciative  blessing  for  our  lives  together, 
he  added: 

And  I  thank  God  for  the  gift  of  you  to  me.  When  you  are 
left  alone — when  you  have  rested — when  you  have  had  a  change 
— you  will  lay  aside  the  ashes  of  mourning  from  your  heart  and 
go  on  with  your  life  of  work — making  it  better  than  it  has 
ever  been — lifting  up  the  fallen,  helping  those  who  need  you, 
and  inaugurating  great  movements  as  you  have  always  done. 
I  shall  watch  you  doing  it  and  rejoice  that  we  did  some  of  the 
probationary  work  together.  And  God  will  give  you  grace  and 
comfort  you. 


451 


CHAPTER  XIV 
A  LAST  TRIBUTE 

THREE  score  years  and  ten  was  the  calendar 
measure  of  his  life,  but  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generations  is  bequeathed  the  vivid 
spirit  which  always  emanated  from  his  hope 
fulness,  his  cheer  and  his  optimism.  Struggle  and 
poverty,  pathos  and  sorrow  and  grief  there  was  in  his 
life,  but  he  builded  on  these  his  faith,  his  trust,  his 
unswerving  belief  in  a  Heavenly  Father's  abounding 
love  which  overflowed  through  him  for  all  humanity. 
His  imagination  and  the  spiritual  promises  hid  in  his 
heart  had  pictured  for  him  over  and  over  again  his 
entrance  upon  the  joys  of  heaven,  which  to  him  was 
such  an  actuality  that  he  often  spoke  of  it  as  one  might 
talk  familiarly  of  a  journey  and  the  arrival  at  its 
destination.  And  yet,  we  do  not  know,  and  possibly 
he  did  not  know  when  the  spirit  winged  its  flight. 
Lingering  unconscious  for  days,  the  physical  act  of 
breathing  ceased  as  a  watch  ceases  to  tick.  His  spirit 
was  always  such  a  joyous  one  that  the  grief  over  our 
immeasurable  loss  was  intermingled  with  a  peculiar 
sense  of  happiness  for  him  that  his  spirit  had  been 
freed,  and  all  he  had  believed,  had  prayed  for  and 
tenaciously  held  to  was  now  his  to  enjoy. 

Expressions  of  appreciation  and  sorrow  were  nation 
wide.  A  composite  might  be  made  of  them,  and  the 
outstanding  lines  would  read:  "Simple,"  "Heartful," 
"Human/'  "Loving,"  "Kind,"  but  each  one  carries 
a  delicate  shading  of  the  analysis  of  these  same  human 
elements.  So  I  quote  a  few  at  random: 

452 


A   LAST  TRIBUTE 

The  life  and  daily  walk  of  Dr.  Burdette  was  a  perfect 
flower  of  his  doctrine  and  philosophy.  No  one  will  ever  know 
how  many  thousands  of  bitter  and  discouraged  souls  drank  in 
new  sweetness  and  hope  therefrom.  Not  until  the  final  account 
ing  can  there  be  any  just  estimate  placed  upon  his  work.  He 
lived  and  worked  and  laughed,  and  the  world  grew  better  and 
happier  and  will  remain  better  and  happier  because  of  him. 

He  wrote  much  for  publication  that  could  not  be  cata 
logued  as  humorous,  but  through  it  all  there  was  a  genial, 
direct,  human  approach,  mingling  the  grave,  the  shrewd,  the 
idealistic,  with  the  laughter  often  close  to  tears,  which  gave 
his  writings  a  wide  audience  and  a  powerful  appeal. 

Having  just  turned  three  score  years  and  ten  when  sum 
moned  to  the  realm  of  eternal  joy,  he  was  humorist  extraor 
dinary  and  cheer-giver  plenipotentiary  for  two  generations. 

There  was  always  something  about  him  suggestive  of  the 
fountain  of  eternal  youth. 

It  was  given  to  him  to  feel  deeply  and  to  plumb  the  depths 
of  human  hearts. 

His  ability  to  find  something  good  in  everything,  his 
determination  to  always  make  the  worst  appear  better,  was  a 
strong  asset. 

Two  things  there  be  for  which  men  are  better.  Laughter 
and  Tears.  Between  them  runs  the  gamut  of  human  emotions, 
and  upon  this  harp  of  a  thousand  strings  Dr.  Burdette  played 
with  the  hand  of  a  master,  and  all  the  music  spoke  of  better 
things,  kindlier  deeds  and  larger  hopes. 

His  mission  was  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  others,  to  preach 
the  gospel  of  good  cheer,  and  by  his  pen,  on  the  platform  an 
in  the  pulpit,  right  nobly  has  he  acquitted  himself  in  the  years 
of  his  ministration.  What  cobwebs  of  the  brain  he  has  helped 
to  brush  away!  What  mental  loads  he  has  rendered  it  easier 
to  bear!  To  how  many  of  us  he  has  given  a  fresh  grip  when  the 
bottom  of  everything  appeared  to  be  slipping  fast!  Yes,  he 
has  mellowed  a  lot,  and  so  many  of  us.  He  has  shown  us  how 

453 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

to  live  kindlier,  how  to  think  in  broader  terms,  to  write  with 
less  of  the  cankerous  desire  to  wound.  To  quote  the  closing 
lines  of  his  last  book,  "  For  love  is  sweeter  than  life,  and  stronger 
than  death  and  larger  than  hate." 

Strickland  Gillilan,  one  of  the  American  Press  Humorists, 
of  which  Mr.  Burdette  was  perpetual  "Pastor  Emeritus", 
wrote,  "  He  was  like  a  tender  father  to  every  one  of  us.  Speak 
ing  of  Burdette  to  Riley  last  fall,  I  said,  'When  Bob  Burdette 
says,  'God  bless  you!'  he  means  it,  and  Riley  replied,  '  So  does 
God  when  Bob  says  it.'  " 

One  of  the  last  things  from  his  pen  was  "  Life's  Melody  and 
Sweetness"  from  his  loved  home  of  "Sunnycrest",  entitled 
"Alpha  and  Omega",  a  poem  in  prose  of  the  road  of  life  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave,  closing  with  this  epigram:  "And  so, 
as  one  in  the  gathering  darkness  retraces  his  steps  by  a  half- 
remembered  path,  much  in  the  same  way  as  he  had  come  into 
this  world,  he  went  out  of  it." 

He  held  to  the  end  the  same  good  cheer  and  the  same 
smiling  outlook  on  life,  and  the  same  kindliness  that  forebore 
in  the  days  of  his  unphilosophic  youth  to  make  a  jest  at  the 
cost  of  other  men.  He  brought  into  the  years  more  and  more 
the  pathos  of  life,  more  of  the  rich  intent  of  the  Creator  who 
gave  him  the  mystic  gift  of  his  divine  humor,  that  earnestness 
should  mingle  with  our  smiles  and  wisdom  temper  our  mirth. 

An  appreciation  of  Mr.  Burdette,  written  by  John 
S.  McGroarty,  author  of  "The  Mission  Play",  is  as 
follows: 

Some  will  say  good-night  to  him, 

And  some  will  say  farewell, 
Hearts  will  ache  and  eyes  be  dim 

With  grief  too  deep  to  tell. 
But  some  will  say  good-morrow — 

They  who  long  before  him  trod 
The  valleys  dark  with  sorrow, 

To  the  happy  hills  of  God. 

454 


A  LAST  TRIBUTE 

He  wrought  no  tears  until  today, 

No  grief  the  heart  to  goad — 
He  who  was  glad  upon  the  way, 

Who  sang  upon  the  road. 
Content  to  stay,  to  go  as  sweet, 

His  story  has  been  told ; 
He  fares  at  last,  afar,  to  greet 

The  merry  men  of  old. 

Beyond  the  throb  of  earth's  desires, 

The  foolish  things  and  wise, 
He  seeks  tonight  the  roadside  fires 

That  gleam  in  Paradise. 
And,  be  his  pathway  short  or  long, 

And  comes  he  soon  or  late, 
The  merry  men  of  God  will  throng 

To  meet  him  at  the  gate. 

Other  words  of  appreciation  were: 

Robert  J.  Burdette  has  ceased  to  borrow  time  on  this  side 
of  the  shoreless  river,  and  on  some  sphere  of  nightless  glory 
has  builded  his  altar  for  eternity. 

He  loved  all  things  lovable  in  nature  and  humanity.  He 
loved  good  books;  the  masterpieces  of  art  and  architecture 
and  music  were  his  companions.  Soldier,  patriot,  author, 
orator,  wit,  friend,  dear  old  Bob,  farewell.  No,  not  farewell, 
but  good-night.  We  will  see  you  in  the  morning. 

God  rest  his  gentle  soul,  and  lend 
His  spirit  with  us  to  the  end. 

An  oft-quoted  response  to  a  letter  of  sympathy 
might  be  my  added  expression  to  these  excerpts  from 
others: 

Through  all  the  years  of  my  husband's  life  he  has  been 
building  a  wonderful  memory  to  himself  by  enfolding  the  world 
in  love  and  now  these  return  such  an  outpouring  of  love  and 
tribute  as  rarely  comes  to  one  man.  His  going  home  was 

455 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

gentle,  joyous,  beautiful,  as  had  been  his  life — and  I  walk 
alone  with  my  beautiful  memories. 

As  he  once  wrote: 

Yesterday's  joys  are  pleasant,  to  me  and  to  you.  Yester 
day's  sorrows  are  sacred.  The  years  make  them  divine. 

So  calmly  did  he  think  of  the  days  that  would  follow 
his  passing,  that  while  he  was  yet  quite  strong,  he  made 
a  memorandum  which  he  told  me  I  would  find  in  his 
desk,  in  suggesting  arrangements  for  the  services  that 
would  follow  his  passing.  In  this  he  said: 

One  of  my  favorite  hymns,  one  which  Violet  and  I  have 
often  sung  together,  is  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes'  "Lord  of  All 
Being  Throned  Afar".  Always  we  sang  it  to  Louvain.  If 
they  should  sing  this  over  my  casket,  I  think  I  could  hear  her 
dear  voice,  dearest,  tenderest,  sweetest  music  in  this  world. 
One  other  hymn,  which  is  written  on  my  heart,  a  hymn  of  the 
Blessed  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  "Jesus,  the  very  Thought  of 
Thee".  This  we  so  often  sang  together  to  Claxton.  These 
are  not  "funeral"  hymns,  but  my  life  was  not  timed  to  funeral 
marches.  Why  should  my  death  be  sadder  than  my  life? 

This  request  was  carried  out  at  the  services  held  in 
the  Pasadena  Presbyterian  church,  of  which  he  had  once 
been  pastor.  While  the  flags  of  the  cities  of  Pasadena 
and  Los  Angeles  were  at  half  mast,  these  hymns  were 
sung  by  a  quartet  of  loyal  friends,  whose  voices  he  had 
loved  in  the  years  of  his  pastorate. 

It  seemed  fitting  indeed  that  his  own  funeral  service  should 
have  had  in  every  word  spoken,  in  each  line  of  the  Scripture 
read,  in  every  tender  pulsing  song,  the  message  of  faith,  the 
conviction  of  eternal  life  and  its  gladness.  There  was  also  an 
appreciation  expressed  that  the  doors  of  the  Auditorium  in  this 
case  were  opened  to  every  one,  embodying  the  generous  ideal 
of  the  democracy  and  the  catholicity  that  Dr.  Burdette  ever 
expressed  in  his  countless  friendships  and  broad  activities. 
456 


A  LAST  TRIBUTE 

Dr.  Robert  Freeman,  Dr.  Robert  R.  Meredith  and 
Dr.  James  Whitcomb  Brougher,  voiced  the  tributes  of 
the  English  speaking  world,  as  well  as  neighbors  and 
immediate  friends.  Dr.  Freeman  dwelt  upon  what  to 
him  epitomized  Mr.  Burdette's  life,  when  he  said: 

He  was  kind.  Other  men  shall  tell  the  stories  of  the  war, 
for  they  too  followed  the  drums  of  the  Forty-seventh,  they  too 
heard  the  sharp  commands  and  followed  the  lead  of  Sherman 
and  Tuttle  and  Mower,  they  too  faced  the  testing  at  the  brook, 
suffered  from  want  and  wounds  and  weary  hearts  and  longed 
for  home  and  mother's  love;  but  every  one  who  tells  of  those 
brave  days  and  sad  days  shall  link  the  name  of  their  little 
fellow  soldier  with  some  cheering  words  and  some  tender  deed 
that  showed  him  to  be  kind.  Others  shall  try  to  tell  of  his 
lectures  in  the  old  days  and  to  make  us  hear  anew  the  jingle 
of  the  jester's  bells,  and  laugh  anew  with  the  wandering  pur 
veyor  of  sunshine;  but  I  shall  see  in  every  line  he  wrote  more 
than  his  sensitive  appreciation  of  the  beautiful,  more  than  his 
versatile  knowledge  of  men  and  of  things,  more  than  an  unusual 
fusion  of  talents,  more  than  cleverness,  more  than  happiness, 
a  soul  overflowing  with  kindness. 

0,  we  shall  remember  the  good  times  we  had  with  him  in 
great  groups  and  in  small.  His  commonest  words  were  songs 
in  many  keys,  sweeter  than  instruments  of  ours  e'er  caught. 
We  shall  remember  his  sermons  when  with  simple  art  he  stirred 
our  souls  to  press  towards  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high 
calling  of  God,  when  this  man  whom  all  the  world  did  love 
revealed  to  us  the  passion  of  his  life  to  follow  Christ  and  serve 
Christ  and  tell  the  story  of  his  Christ  until  it  won  upon  the 
hearts  of  men.  But  most  of  all  we  shall  remember  that  kind 
ness  watered  the  roots  of  his  life,  and  was  the  stream  that  made 
possible  the  delight  of  men  in  the  green  pastures  and  blooming 
flowers  and  refreshing  fruit  of  his  ministry.  His  jokes  were 
never  gibes,  his  humor  was  ever  pointed  with  generous  intent, 
and  all  the  children  of  his  mind  were  rocked  in  the  cradle  of 
his  loving  heart. 

Oh,  for  the  subtle  touch  of  his  art! 
0,  for  the  gift  of  his  pen! 

457 


ROBERT  J.  BTJRDETTE— HIS   MESSAGE 

0,  for  his  smile  just  once  in  a  while! 

0,  for  his  ways  among  men ! 
0,  for  the  gentle  charm  of  his  speech! 

0,  for  the  powers  of  his  mind ! 
But  mostly  I  pray,  on  this  deep-shadowed  day, 

0,  for  his  grace  to  be  Kind ! 

Tender  and  beautiful  were  the  expressions  given  by 
Dr.  Robert  R.  Meredith,  himself  one  of  the  grand  old 
men  of  the  American  pulpit,  and  one  whose  power  had 
not  declined  with  the  ripening  wisdom  of  his  advanced 
years.  As  he  stood  in  the  pulpit  where  Mr.  Burdette 
himself  had  stood,  the  sunlight  came  streaming  through 
the  cathedral  windows,  illuminating  his  distinguished 
features,  and  his  hair  that  was  white  like  snow.  Begin 
ning  in  a  clear  yet  low  voice,  as  one  who  draws  his 
audience  into  confidence,  then  step  by  step,  his  beauti 
ful  eulogy  was  pronounced,  his  rich  and  vibrant  voice 
registering  in  deeper  tones,  ringing  with  sweet  clarity: 

He  in  whose  honor  we  are  gathered  this  afternoon  is  absent. 
The  beloved  father  and  husband,  the  faithful  and  generous 
friend,  the  wise  and  brave  citizen,  Robert  J.  Burdette,  has 
passed  beyond  our  reach.  He  was  given  a  quiet  hour  in  which 
to  die  at  his  beautiful  home,  Sunnycrest,  and  with  those  whom 
he  loved  best  on  earth  surrounding  him.  I  am  impressed  with 
the  humanness  of  Dr.  Burdette's  life.  He  lived  just  a  plain 
everyday  human  life,  with  its  ups  and  downs  and  its  joys  and 
sorrows.  The  great  secret  of  his  power  was  his  brotherly  love 
and  his  belief  in  God.  His  religious  faith  was  not  mere  inherit 
ance.  It  was  his  own  and  it  fitted  him  exactly. 

In  his  simple  appraisement  he  gave  expression  to 
the  current  thought  of  all  the  world  that  knew  Mr. 
Burdette.  He  said  just  what  the  world  was  waiting 
to  hear  said.  He  caught  the  heart-throbs  of  a  number 
of  sorrowing  people  and  put  them  into  speech. 
458 


•JULY    30.  1.84-4  ~ 


"  THt  PiLCBlM.THEY  LAID  IN  A 
UPPER        -,H3f  ft  WHOSE  WINDOW 

SING.  THE  NAME  OF  THE 
-.WBEF^  HE  SLEPT  TILL 
BREAK  OF  DAY:  A«D  THEN  HE  AWGItE  AWO  SMC 


THE  FINAL  WORD 


A  LAST  TRIBUTE 

The  offerings  of  flowers  and  the  service  were  simple, 
as  Mr.  Burdette  would  have  wished,  and  at  his  oft- 
spoken  desire,  I  outwardly  expressed  the  fact  that  I 
was  set  aside  to  walk  alone  by  the  wearing  of  white 
mourning.  In  this  his  expression  was  that  it  was  life, 
not  death,  which  he  would  ever  keep  before  the  world. 

We  carried  him  to  Rosedale,  where  reverently 
about  the  open  grave  there  stood  a  great  gathering  of 
those  who  had  known  and  loved  him.  Among  them 
were  Protestants  and  Catholics,  Jews  and  Gentiles,  all 
recognized  representatives,  who  came  to  testify  to  the 
Catholicism  of  Mr.  Burdette's  brotherhood  and  faith  in 
life  and  the  eternal  verities.  He  must  have  visioned 
this  when  he  wrote: 

Such  a  sweet,  beautiful  place  for  one  to  sleep!  0  child  of 
God,  the  graves  of  all  who  fall  asleep  are  made  in  gardens  of 
loveliness.  Birds  of  eternal  hope  and  blossoms  of  faith  fringe 
every  sleeping-place,  and  the  gentle  earth  lies  lightly  on  the 
ashes  that  we  love.  Every  cemetery  in  Christendom  is  a 
garden.  Today,  in  climes  more  rigorous  than  ours,  men  smile 
with  tender  joy  to  see  that  the  grass  is  green  in  the  sun-gleams 
that  caress  the  little  mounds  where  loved  ones  lie  asleep,  and 
the  children  find  the  delicate  anemones  like  stars  shining  down 
in  the  graveyard  grasses.  In  every  home  there  is  a  pictured 
face  on  the  wall  that  brings  the  longing  ache  into  the  heart. 
But  the  dear  absent  one  sleeps  in  a  garden,  and  everything  in 
the  garden,  grasses  and  buds  and  dainty  wild  flowers,  stately 
lily  and  queenly  rose,  majestic  palm  and  oak  and  pine — every 
thing  in  the  garden  sings,  and  sings,  and  sings  of  life — life — 
life — and  ever  more  life!  Not  of  decay  and  death. 

We  laid  him  in  Rosedale,  in  fulfillment  of  his  written 
request: 

I  desire  to  rest  close  beside  her  whose  love  and  patience 
and  fidelity  has  pillowed  my  aching  heart  so  many  times  when 
the  way  of  the  pilgrimage  was  tear-swept,  my  Violet-wife. 

459 


ROBERT  J.   BURDETTE— HIS  MESSAGE 

It  will  be  enough  if  the  stone  which  shall  mark  the  place 
where  nothing  lies  should  bear  no  mark  but  my  name,  but  if 
anything  be  written  thereon,  this  I  selected  for  myself  when  I 
was  a  boy  of  14,  indeed  it  was  on  my  14th  birthday  that  I 
formally  chose  it  from  the  favorite  book  of  my  life  time,  the 
"Pilgrim's  Progress" — "It  is  written  of  the  night,  Christian 
slept  in  the  house  beautiful." 

And  there  the  stone  has  been  placed  which  bears  his 
name  and  the  inscription: 

"The  Pilgrim  they  laid  in  a  large  upper  chamber, 
whose  window  opened  towards  the  sunrising;  the  name 
of  the  chamber  was  Peace,  where  he  slept  till  break  of 
day,  and  then  he  awoke  and  sang." 


460 


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